

**,■»•* aO o N o* O Nil*’ 

% S * • ^ ^ A p t • o^ ^5 * * r 

' a”^ .,-v A. **(25**# ^ „ A*^ * ^d*^^.** 



O N 0 


V ,<£ * 



■ 0 ,A V ** 

• »o>* ^ 

, >> 0 -V ,<?5 ^ 

/ic o * t -^ou <J ” ■)* 0 ^Ij. <ih O 

^ o ; 0 ° ^ O .0 * 0 H O ° a ^ ^ ~ • » 1 

> - * • « ^>v <V % * trw A v \r * * * o, C> 


v <\ a\ 

5^ ;^HP. aV^ ; 

* <y ^ •» 


O v * 4 

>5 7k , 



o. '- 7V7' A <, - 

6 ® 1 ® ■» C> «i^ • 1 * * -P 

^ ^Mtzac. *v 

: *b r . 

* \0 rj 4 . * 

' > ti. 


o • * 


>* xA A ' 

• %£> AJ * 

: v^ v : 

* 4S> ^ • 

« - 


i - • ^ 


° <?Vv C,* 


o * o 


*b V 


o ^5 ^ 

w-t- V^W 5 '* «> 

* i 1 ‘ a 0 £> * © » © <y 

c \ » < • * » A x> 


• i9 *, * 


> r V • , 

o 4. ^0 ^ % - x>^~ . 

o^ * • , i • ^P ^J>. * » * ° 9 

« * c\ v <y a> 


A^^a o 
^ •<$* * 



• ^ A* 

; v^ v 

♦ -«? ^ 

AV ^ 




: 

- ** 


♦ aOt*. 

•* £ * , 

*p w ' 1 A 0 ® n o 9 AJ) 1 

f *°' ^ aP A> v % •*•** "Cv 

•o ^ at ^ ^ /V 

L ° 

-||i? O 



,y ^*.s s A <A *••»*' <0 


c— 0_ ^ ^ sQ C 0 ^ 0 ^ 'O 



v^ ♦ 

■: ^ov^ ; 

^ ;, Q ++ : 

syyip&v * _o <i. •» 

tt;*’ a° ^ '* 


A ' <<* 

& v!i^. 



o «a5 ^ 

' Q * 






^ - ^*0^ 0 

JO*?*. 

o M o * *^a * 9 , t • ' A ^ ^ 

V . t . o. <0 v ,»•’ A V> 

I ° ^ A * 4 p *QilOfe * 


V v „* 


o 

y & °. 

<• - 


- w 



V t* T * °-T O 

y * yy /h*' ^?v, ^ 

v^ •i sM .*. ' J ^V > « 

c. • a ' SsSTTKiJ * l.i * 


. 9 *\..., % — \f ... % **■'* 

* *'<Sfei'. ^ ,WV. V ^ 






• <?\ v®?* y\ vKk* ** v \ #» ^ 
/ ‘ • X '* " ' </..-• . ,V * * ‘ >\ • ‘ ' * « \'°'‘‘ 0 *° ... 

«v^»» ^ :£mtp\ ^o* « 

* .>■ * 'sy/ziiM! ■ jP ' 7 <#v "JslillS*’. 0 <}^ ’ 

*v ” “ " 0 ’ \^' , . °°4* ‘"’*’^ 0 ° .. %. '**>•’’ °°. *"• 

*r \y a 1 # O, 




■* 

°" ^ °^ 0 • „ „ 

** ••■•° <** / ... ^ ••’••• ‘°* * 
■ ** ^ *Wa*® **, / * % &t& ^ A * v ♦ *'*;,' ®\ 

V* v *v/\ 'llBr ° A^ e> ' { f7/^\\V' " c,*' '•/n ■* ^^illllB^'' ° 

* v ^ *y<?Ws J? ^ 'xKSj . v 


* ** 


.o- A 

q » o * o ^ .<^' t / « 

v CvvAtn^ 1,1 ^ J 

^ K ^ 9 * 

• Of* • 


O • A 




0 V , 0 » o , ’ * A?' . t 

■W *bJ : 



o «5 °i* ^° 

* ' 1 w ’ ^ ^o" 0 * ^ ** * . 1 • * a0° %> * * o 

°« V 'ii; : 

“ c £m^Nxs?* ,c,. n \,^v w/mw; V 

a. ^ ~ sr r*s '♦: 

r ^ ^ 

'"®” oV^^PT* ^ ^ ‘■'jGMS>s. '•#>,.„« 



, jp *cj, 

,« ,o° %.**-, 

^ " 0 W o ^ 



: ^o v* : 

■?5 ^ 2> 0 ^ *„. 

5^ *•".’•• 0 ^ ^ , . . , ^ * » i» 0 ^'\,.„ 0< V * • . ’ • ’' o ^°° s . . 

<• V ^ ‘VSjiS'. > v *>Va % ^ ^ SjtMb*. ' *. 

° IfW** ^ ^ 





v V’ * k ^ 

A <\ *o « a - <Cr 

y /«««?%’ ^ o u •isshlr. °o ,v^' •§, 


■AO 

>° ^ ^ 

<i r o 

^-•»«° °^ 

> V • ’ * ®» A - 

^ * iSfc ^ > •* 

v^ v ” 

V^A 


ff>1 A 0 V, 



4>*' v^ °- 
* ° * o 9 sy 

V p * V # A 'C\ 
r %>/< v « o 



vv 


A 



A 
























FRANK R. STOCKTON 

Volume VIII 

POMONA’S TRAVELS 









THE NOVELS AND STORIES OE 
FRANK R. STOCKTON 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 



NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 
1900 

Ctr-^2. 



TWO COPIES RECEIVED, 

Library of Congro«% 
Offloa of 

FER2719O0 

Begfstor of Copyright^ 


' \ 



Copyright, 1891, 1894, 1900, by 
Charles Scribner’s Sons 


; FIRST COPY, 

P 9 ^ t 

’S' Cl b 


THE DEVINNE PRESS. 




CONTENTS 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 

LETTERS 

I Wanted : a Vicarage .... 

II On the Four-in-hand .... 

hi Jone Overshadows the Waiter 
IV The Cottage at Chedcombe 
V Pomona Takes a Lodger 
vi Pomona Expounds Americanisms . 

VII The Hay -field 

viii Jone Teaches Young Ladies how to Rake 
ix A Runaway Tricycle .... 

x Pomona Slides Backward down the Slope 
of the Centuries .... 

xi On the Moors 

XII Stag-hunting on a Tricycle . 

xm The Green Placard 

xiv Pomona and her David Llewellyn 
xv Hogs and the Fine Arts .... 
xvi With Dickens in London 
xvn Buxton and the Bath-chairs 
xviii Mr. Poplington as Guide 
xix Angelica and Pomeroy .... 
v 


PAGE 

3 

5 

13 

23 

31 

41 

45 

52 

60 

65 

77 

81 

87 

95 

102 

110 

122 

130 

142 

149 


CONTENTS 


LETTEKS PAGE 

xx The Countess of Mussleby . . . 157 

xxi Edinboro’ Town 164 

xxn Pomona and her Gilly .... 169 

xxiii They Follow the Lady of the Lake . .179 

xxi y Comparisons Become Odious to Pomona 186 
xxy The Family-tree Man .... 193 

xxyi Searching for Dorkminsters . . . 202 

xxyii Their Country and their Custom-house 205 

EUPHEMIA AMONG THE PELICANS . 211 

THE RUDDER GRANGERS IN ENGLAND 243 

POMONA’S DAUGHTER 265 


vi 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 



POMONA’S TRAVELS 


T HIS series of letters, written by Pomona of 
Rudder Grange to her former mistress, Eu- 
phemia, may require a few words of introduction. 
Those who have not read the adventures and experi- 
ences of Pomona in u Rudder Grange” should be told 
that she first appeared in that story as a very young 
and illiterate girl, fond of sensational romances, and 
with some out-of-the-way ideas in regard to domestic 
economy and the conventions of society. This ro- 
mantic orphan took service in the Rudder Grange 
family, and as the story progressed she grew up into 
a very estimable young woman, and finally married 
Jonas, the son of a well-to-do farmer. Even after she 
came into possession of a husband and a daughter, 
Pomona did not lose her affection for her former 
employers. 

About a year before the beginning of the travels 
described in these letters, Jonas’s father died and left 
a comfortable little property, which placed Pomona 
and her husband in independent circumstances. The 
ideas and ambitions of this eccentric but sensible 
young woman enlarged with her fortune. As her 
daughter was now going to school, Pomona was seized 
with the spirit of emulation, and determined, as far 

3 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


as was possible, to make the child’s education an ad- 
vantage to herself. Some of the books used by the 
little girl at school were carefully and earnestly 
studied by her mother, and as Jonas joined with 
hearty good will in the labors and pleasures of this 
system of domestic study, the family standard of edu- 
cation was considerably raised. In the quick-witted 
and observant Pomona the improvement showed 
itself principally in her methods of expression, and 
although she could not be called at the time of these 
travels an educated woman, she was by no means an 
ignorant one. 

When the daughter was old enough, she was al- 
lowed to accept an invitation from her grandmother 
to spend the summer in the country, and Pomona 
determined that it was the duty of herself and her 
husband to avail themselves of this opportunity for 
foreign travel. 

Accordingly, one fine spring morning, Pomona, still 
a young woman, and Jonas, not many years older, but 
imbued with a semi-pathetic complaisance beyond his 
years, embarked for England and Scotland, to which 
countries it was determined to limit their travels. 
The letters which follow were written in consequence 
of the earnest desire of Euphemia to have a full 
account of the travels and foreign impressions of 
her former handmaiden. Pruned of dates, addresses, 
signatures, and of many personal and friendly allu- 
sions, these letters are here presented as Pomona 
wrote them to Euphemia. 


4 


LETTER NUMBER ONE 


London. 

The first thing Jone said to me when I told him I 
was going to write about what I saw and heard was 
that I must be careful of two things: in the first 
place, I must not write a lot of stuff that everybody 
ought to be expected to know, especially people who 
have travelled themselves ; and in the second place, 
I must not send you my green opinions, but must 
wait until they were seasoned, so that I can see what 
they are good for before I send them. 

“But if I do that,” said I, “I will get tired of them 
long before they are seasoned, and they will be like 
a bundle of old sticks that I wouldn’t offer to any- 
body.” 

Jone laughed at that, and said I might as well 
send them along green, for, after all, I wasn’t the 
kind of a person to keep things until they were 
seasoned, to see if I liked them. 

“That’s true,” said I. “There’s a great many things, 
such as husbands and apples, that I like a good deal 
better fresh than dry. Is that all the advice you’ve 
got to give ? ” 

“For the present,” said he, “but I dare say I shall 
have a good deal more as we go along.” 

5 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


“All right,” said I, “but be careful you don’t give 
me any of it green. Advice is like gooseberries, 
which have got to be soft and ripe, or else well cooked 
and sugared, before they’re fit to take into anybody’s 
stomach.” 

Jone was standing at the window of our sitting- 
room when I said this, looking out into the street. 
As soon as we got to London we took lodgings in a 
little street running out of the Strand, for we both 
want to be in the middle of things as long as we are 
in this conglomerate town, as Jone calls it. He says, 
and I think he is about right, that it is made up of 
half a dozen large cities, ten or twelve towns, at least 
fifty villages, more than a hundred little settlements,— 
or hamlets, as they call them here,— and about a thou- 
sand country houses scattered along around the edges ; 
and over and above all these are the inhabitants of a 
large province, which, there being no province to put 
them into, are crammed into all the cracks and crev- 
ices so as to fill up the town and pack it solid. 

When we was in London before, with you and your 
husband, madam, and we lost my baby in Kensington 
Gardens, we lived, you know, in a peaceful, quiet 
street by a square or crescent, where about half the 
inhabitants were pervaded with the solemnities of 
the past and the other half bowed down by the dole- 
fulness of the present, and no way of getting any- 
where except by descending into a movable tomb, 
which is what I always think of when we go any- 
where in the underground railway. But here we can 
walk to lots of things we want to see, and if there 
was nothing else to keep us lively, the fear of being 
run over would do it, you may be sure. 

6 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


But, after all, Jone and me didn’t come here to 
London just to see the town. We have ideas far 
ahead of that. When we was in London before I saw 
pretty nearly all the sights, for when I’ve got work 
like that to do I don’t let the grass grow under my 
feet, and what we want to do on this trip is to see 
the country part of England and Scotland. And in 
order to see English country life just as it is, we both 
agreed that the best thing to do was to take a little 
house in the country and live there awhile. And I’ll 
say here that this is the only plan of the whole jour- 
ney that Jone gets real enthusiastic about, for he is a 
domestic man, as you well know, and if anything 
swells his veins with fervent rapture, it is the idea of 
living in some one place continuous, even if it is only 
for a month. 

As we wanted a house in the country, we came to 
London to get it, for London is the place to get every- 
thing. Our landlady advised us, when we told her 
what we wanted, to try and get a vicarage in some 
little village, because, she said, there are always lots 
of vicars who want to go away for a month in the sum- 
mer, and they can’t do it unless they rent their houses 
while they are gone. And, in fact, some of them, she 
said, got so little salary for the whole year, and so 
much rent for their vicarages while they are gone, 
that they often can’t afford to stay in places unless 
they go away. 

So we answered some advertisements,— and there 
was no lack of them in the papers,— and three agents 
came to see us, but we did not seem to have any luck. 
Each of them had a house to let which ought to have 
suited us, according to their descriptions, and al- 

7 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


though we found the prices a good deal higher than 
we expected, Jone said he wasn’t going to be stopped 
by that, because it was only for a little while, and for 
the sake of experience — and experience, as all the 
poets, and a good many of the prose writers besides, 
tell us, is always dear. But after the agents went 
away, saying they would communicate with us in the 
morning, we never heard anything more from them, 
and we had to begin all over again. There was some- 
thing the matter, Jone and I both agreed on that, but 
we didn’t know what it was. But I waked up in the 
night, and thought about this thing for a whole hour, 
and in the morning I had an idea. 

“ Jone,” said I, when we was eating breakfast, “it’s 
as plain as A B C that those agents don’t want us for 
tenants, and it isn’t because they think we are not to 
be trusted, for we’d have to pay in advance, and so 
their money’s safe. It is something else, and I think I 
.know what it is. These London men are very sharp, 
and used to sizing and sorting all kinds of people as 
if they was potatoes being got ready for market, and 
they have seen that we are not what they call over 
here gentlefolks.” 

“No lordly airs, eh?” said Jone. 

“Oh, I don’t mean that,” I answered him back. 
“ Lordly airs don’t go into parsonages, and I don’t 
mean, either, that they see from our looks or manners 
that you used to drive horses and milk cows and work 
in the garden, and that I used to cook and scrub and 
was maid-of-all-work on a canal-boat ; but they do see 
that we are not the kind of people who are in the 
habit, in this country, at least, of spending their 
evenings in the best parlors of vicarages.” 

8 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


“Do you suppose/ 7 said Jone, “that they think a 
vicar’s kitchen would suit us better?” 

“No/ 7 said I, “they wouldn’t put us in a vicarage 
at all. There wouldn’t be no place there that would 
not be either too high or too low for us. It’s my 
opinion that what they think we belong in is a lordly 
house, where you’d shine most as head butler or a 
steward, while I’d be the housekeeper or a leading 
lady’s-maid.” 

“By George ! ” said Jone, getting up from the 
table, “if any of those fellows would favor me with 
an opinion like that, I’d break his head!” 

“You’d have a lot of heads to break,” said I, “if 
you went through this country asking for opinions on 
the subject. It’s all very well for us to remember 
that we’ve got a house of our own as good as most 
rectors have over here, and money enough to hire a 
minor canon, if we needed one in the house, but the 
people over here don’t know that, and it wouldn’t 
make much difference if they did, for it wouldn’t 
matter how nice we lived, or what we had, so long as 
they knew we was retired servants.” 

At this Jone just blazed up, and rammed his hands 
into his pockets, and spread his feet wide upon the 
floor. “Pomona,” said he, “I don’t mind it in you, 
but if anybody else was to call me a retired servant 
I’d-” 

“Hold up, Jone,” said I, “don’t waste good, whole- 
some anger.” Now, I tell you, madam, it really did 
me good to see Jone blaze up and get red in the face, 
and I am sure that if he’d get his blood boiling 
oftener it would be a good thing for his dyspeptic 
tendencies and what little malaria may be left in his 

9 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


system. “It won’t do any good to flare up here/’ I 
went on to say to him. “ Fact’s fact, and we was ser- 
vants, and good ones, too, though I say it myself. And 
the trouble is, we haven’t got into the way of alto- 
gether forgetting it, or, at least, acting as if we had 
forgotten it.” 

Jone sat down on a chair. “It might help matters 
a little,” he said, “if I knew what you was driving at.” 

“I mean just this,” said I : “as long as we are as 
anxious not to give trouble, or as careful of people’s 
feelings, as good-mannered to servants, and as polite 
and good-natured to everybody we have anything to 
do with, as we both have been since we came here, 
and as it is our nature to be, I am proud to say, 
we’re bound to be set down— at least, by the general 
run of people over here— as belonging to the pick of 
the nobility and gentry, or as well-bred servants. 
It’s only those two classes that act as we do, and any- 
body can see we are not special nobles and gents. 
Now, if we want to be reckoned anywhere in be- 
tween these two, we’ve got to change our manners.” 

“Will you kindly mention just how?” said Jone. 

“Yes,” said I, “I will. In the first place, we’ve got 
to act as if we had always been waited on, and had 
never been satisfied with the way it was done. We’ve 
got to let people think that we think we are a good 
deal better than they are, and what they think about 
it doesn’t make the least difference. And then, again, 
we’ve got to live in better quarters than these, and 
whatever they may be, we must make people think 
that we don’t think they are quite good enough for us. 
If we do all that, agents may be willing to let us 
vicarages.” 


10 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


“It strikes me/’ said Jone, “that these quarters are 
good enough for us. I’m comfortable.” And then 
he went on to say, madam, that when you and your 
husband was in London you was well satisfied with 
just such lodgings. 

“That’s all very well,” I said, “for they never 
moved in the lower paths of society, and so they 
didn’t have to make any change, but just went along 
as they had been used to go. But if we want to 
make people believe we belong to that class I should 
choose, if I had my pick out of English social varie- 
ties, we’ve got to bounce about as much above it as 
we were born below it, so that we can strike some- 
where near the proper average.” 

“And what variety would you pick out, I’d like to 
know?” said Jone, just a little red in the face, and 
looking as if I had told him he didn’t know timothy- 
hay from oat-straw. 

“Well,” said I, “it is not easy to put it to you ex- 
actly, but it’s a sort of a cross between a prosperous 
farmer without children and a poor country gentle- 
man with two sons at college and one in the British 
army, and no money to pay their debts with.” 

“That last is not to my liking,” said Jone. 

“But the farmer part of the cross would make it all 
right,” I said to him, “and it strikes me that a mix- 
ture like that would just suit us while we are staying 
over here. Now, if you will try to think of yourself 
as part rich farmer and part poor gentleman, I’ll con- 
sider myself the wife of the combination, and I am 
sure we will get along better. We didn’t come over 
here to be looked upon as if we was the bottom of a 
pie-dish, and charged as if we was the upper crust. 

11 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


Pm in favor of paying a little more money and getting 
a lot more respectfulness, and the way to begin is to 
give up these lodgings, and go to a hotel such as the 
upper middlers stop at. From what I’ve heard, the 
Babylon Hotel is the one for us while we are in 
London. Nobody will suspect that any of the people 
at that hotel are retired servants.” 

This hit Jone hard, as I knew it would, and he 
jumped up, made three steps across the room, and 
rang the bell so that the people across the street must 
have heard it, and up came the boy in green jacket 
and buttons, with about every other button missing, 
and I never knew him to come up so quick before. 

“Boy,” said Jone to him, as if he was hollering to a 
stubborn ox, “go order me a four-in-hand.” 

But this letter is so long, I must stop for the present. 


12 


LETTER NUMBER TWO 


London. 

When Jone gave the remarkable order mentioned in 
my last letter, I did not correct him, for I wouldn’t do 
that before servants without giving him a chance to 
do it himself. But before either of us could say another 
word the boy was gone. 

“Mercy on us,” I said, “what a stupid blunder ! 
You meant four-wheeler.” 

“Of course I did,” he said. “I was a little mad, and 
got things mixed. But I expect the fellow understood 
what I meant.” 

“You ought to have called a hansom, anyway,” I 
said, “for they are a lot more stylish to go to a hotel 
in than in a four-wheeler.” 

“If there was six- wheelers, I would have ordered 
one,” said he. “I don’t want anybody to have more 
wheels than we have.” 

At this moment the landlady came into the room 
with a sarcastic glimmer on her underdone visage, 
and says she, “I suppose you don’t understand about 
the vehicles we have in London. The four-in-hand is 
what the quality and coach people use when—” 

As I looked at Jone I saw his legs tremble, and I 
know what that means. If I was a wandering dog, and 
13 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


saw Jone’s legs tremble, the only thoughts that would 
fill my soul would be such as cluster around “Home, 
Sweet Home.” Jone was too much riled by the 
woman’s manner to be willing to let her think he had 
made a mistake, and he stopped her short. “Look 
here,” he said to her, “I don’t ask you to come here 
to tell me anything about vehicles. When I order 
any sort of a trap, I want it.” 

When I heard Jone say “trap ” my soul lifted itself, 
and I knew there was hope for us. The stiffness 
melted right out of the landlady, and she began to 
look soft and gummy. 

“If you want to take a drive in a four-in-hand 
coach, sir,” she said, “there’s two or three of them 
starts every morning from Trafalgar Square, and it’s 
not too late now, sir, if you go over there immediate.” 

“Go? ” said Jone, throwing himself into a chair. “I 
said, order one to come ! Where I live, that sort of 
vehicle comes to the door for its passengers.” 

The woman looked at Jone with a venerative up- 
lifting of her eyebrows. “I can’t say, sir, that a coach 
will come, but I’ll send the boy. They go to Dork- 
ing, and Seven Oaks, and Virginia Water—” 

“I want to go to Virginia Water,” said Jone, as 
quick as lightning. 

“How, then,” said I, when the woman had gone, 
“what are you going to do if the coach comes?” 

“Go to Virginia Water in it,” said Jone, “and 
when we come back, we can go to the hotel. I made 
a mistake, but I’ve got to stand by it, or be called a 
greenhorn.” 

I was in hopes the four-in-hand wouldn’t come. But 
in less than ten minutes there drove up to our door a 
14 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


four-horse coach, which, not having half enough pas- 
sengers, was glad to come such a little ways to get 
some more. There was a man in a high hat and red 
coat, who was blowing a horn as the thing came 
around the corner, and just as I was looking into the 
coach, and thinking we’d have it all to ourselves, for 
there was nobody in it, he put a ladder up against 
the top, and says he, touching his hat, “ There’s a seat 
for you, madam, right next the coachman, and one 
just behind for the gentleman. ’Tain’t often that, on 
a fine morning like this, such seats as them is left 
vacant on account of a sudden case of croup in a baro- 
net’s family.” 

I looked at the ladder, and I looked at that top 
front seat, and I tell you, madam, I trembled in every 
pore. But I remembered then that all the respectable 
seats was on top, and the farther front the nobbier, 
and as there was a young woman sitting already on 
the box-seat, I made up my mind that if she could sit 
there I could, and that I wasn’t going to let Jone or 
anybody else see that I was frightened by style and 
fashion, though confronted by it so sudden and unex- 
pected. So up that ladder I went quick enough, 
having had practice in hay-mows, and sat myself 
down between the young woman and the coachman, 
and when Jone had tucked himself in behind me, the 
horner blew his horn, and away we went. 

I tell you, madam, that box-seat was a queer box 
for me. I felt as though I was sitting on the eaves of 
a roof, with a herd of horses cavoorting under my feet. 
I never had a bird’s-eye view of horses before. Look- 
ing down on their squirming bodies, with the coach- 
man almost standing on his tiptoes driving them, was 
15 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


so different from Jone’s buggy and our tall gray horse, 
which in general we look up to, that for a good while 
I paid no attention to anything but the danger of 
falling out on top of them. But having made sure 
that Jone was holding on to my dress from behind, I 
began to take an interest in the things around me. 

Knowing as much as I thought I did about the 
bigness of London, I found, that morning, that I never 
had any idea of what an everlasting town it is. It is 
like a skein of tangled yarn— there doesn’t seem to 
be any end to it. Going in this way from Kelson’s 
Monument out into the country, it was amazing to see 
how long it took to get there. We would go out of 
the busy streets into a quiet rural neighborhood, or 
what looked like it, and the next thing we knew we’d 
be in another whirl of omnibuses and cabs, with 
people and shops everywhere. And we’d go on and 
through this, and then come to another handsome 
village with country houses, and the street would end 
in another busy town. And so on until I began to 
think there was no real country, at least, in the direc- 
tion we was going. It is my opinion that if London 
was put on a pivot and spun round in the State of 
Texas until it all flew apart, it would spread all over 
the State and settle up the whole country. 

At last we did get away from the houses, and began 
to roll along on the best-made road I ever saw, with 
a hedge on each side, and the greenest grass in the 
fields, and the most beautiful trees, with the very 
trunks covered with green leaves, and with white 
sheep and handsome cattle and pretty thatched cot- 
tages, and everything in perfect order, looking as if 
it had just been sprinkled and swept. We had seen 
16 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


English country before, but that was from the win- 
dows of a train, and it was very different from this 
sort of thing, where we went meandering along lanes, 
for that is what the roads look like, being so narrow. 

Just as I was getting my whole soul full of this 
lovely ruralness, down came a shower of rain without 
giving the least notice. I gave a jump in my seat as 
I felt it on me, and began to get ready to get down 
as soon as the coachman should stop for us all to get 
inside. But he didn’t stop, but just drove along as if 
the sun was shining and the balmy breezes blowing. 
And then I looked around, and not a soul of the eight 
people on the top of that coach showed the least sign 
of expecting to get down and go inside. They all sat 
there just as if nothing was happening, and not one of 
them even mentioned the rain. But I noticed that 
each of them had on a mackintosh, or some kind of 
cape, whereas Jone and I never thought of taking 
anything in the way of waterproof or umbrellas, as it 
was perfectly clear when we started. 

I looked around at Jone, but he sat there with his 
face as placid as a piece of cheese, looking as if he 
had no more knowledge it was raining than the two 
Englishmen on the seat next him. Seeing he wasn’t 
going to let those men think he minded the rain any 
more than they did, I determined that I wouldn’t let 
the young woman who was sitting by me have any 
notion that I minded it, and so I sat still, with as 
cheerful a look as I could screw up, gazing at the trees 
with as gladsome a countenance as anybody could 
have with water trickling down her nose, her cheeks 
dripping, and dewdrops on her very eyelashes, while 
the dampness of her back was getting more and more 
17 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


perceptible as each second dragged itself along. Jone 
turned up the hood of my coat, and so let down into 
the back of my neck what water had collected in it. 
But I didn’t say anything, but set my teeth hard 
together, and fixed my mind on Columbia, happy land, 
and determined never to say anything about rain 
until some English person first mentioned it. 

But when one of the flowers on my hat leaned over 
the brim and exuded bloody drops on the front of my 
coat, I began to weaken, and to think that if there 
was nothing better to do, I might get under one of the 
seats. But just then the rain stopped and the sun 
shone. It was so sudden that it startled me. But not 
one of those English people mentioned that the rain 
had stopped and the sun was shining, and so neither 
did Jone or I. We was feeling mighty moist and 
unhappy, but we tried to smile as if we was plants in 
a greenhouse, accustomed to being watered and feel- 
ing all the better for it. 

I can’t write you all about the coach drive, which 
was very delightful, nor of that beautiful lake they 
call Virginia Water, and which I know you have a 
picture of in your house. They tell me it is artificial, 
but as it was made more than a hundred years ago, it 
might now be considered natural. We dined at an 
inn, and when we got back to town, with two more 
showers on the way, I said to Jone that I thought 
we’d better go straight to the Babylon Hotel— which 
we intended to start out for, although it was a long 
way round to go by Virginia Water— and see about 
engaging a room. And as Jone agreed, I asked the 
coachman if he would put us down there, knowing 
18 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


that he’d pass near it. He agreed to this, and seemed 
very glad to stop there, which, I suppose, would be an 
advertisement for his coach. 

When we got on the street where the Babylon 
Hotel was, he whipped up his horses so that they 
went almost on a run, and the horner blew his horn 
until his eyes seemed bursting, and with a grand 
sweep and a clank and a jingle, we pulled up at the 
front of the big hotel. Out marched the head porter 
in a blue uniform, and out ran two under-porters with 
red coats, and down jumped the horner and put up 
his ladder, and Jone and I got down, after giving the 
coachman half a crown, and receiving from the pas- 
sengers a combined gaze of differentialism which had 
been wholly wanting before. The men in the red 
coats looked disappointed when they saw we had no 
baggage, but the great doors was flung open, and we 
went straight up to the clerk’s desk. 

When we was taken to look at rooms, I remem- 
bered that there was always danger of Jone’s tendency 
to thankful contentment getting the better of him, 
and I took the matter in hand myself. Two rooms 
good enough for anybody was shown us, but I was not 
going to take the first thing that was offered, no mat- 
ter what it was. We settled the matter by getting a 
first-class room, with sofas and writing-desks and 
everything convenient, for only a little more than 
we was charged for the other rooms, and the next 
morning we went there. 

When we went back to our lodgings to pack up, 
and I looked in the glass and saw what a smeary, 
bedraggled state my hat and head was in from being 
19 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


rained on, I said to Jone, “I don’t see how those 
people ever let such a person as me have a room at 
their hotel.” 

“It doesn’t surprise me a bit,” said Jone. “Nobody 
but a very high and mighty person would have dared 
to go lording it about that hotel with her hat feathers 
and flowers all plastered down over her head. Most 
people can be uppish in good clothes, but to look like 
a scarecrow and be uppish can’t be expected except 
from the truly lofty.” 

“I hope you are right,” I said, and I think he was. 

We hadn’t been at the Babylon Hotel, where we 
are now, for more than two days when I said to Jone 
that this sort of thing wasn’t going to do. He looked 
at me amazed. “What on earth is the matter now? ” 
he said. “Here is a room fit for a royal duke, in a 
house with marble corridors and palace stairs, and 
gorgeous smoking-rooms, and a post-office, and a 
dining-room pretty nigh big enough for a Hall of Con- 
gress, with waiters enough to make two military com- 
panies, and the bills of fare all in French. If there is 
anything more you want, Pomona—” 

“Stop there,” said I. “The last thing you mention is 
the rub. It’s the dining-room. It’s in that resplen- 
dent hall that we’ve got to give ourselves a social 
boom, or be content to fold our hands and fade away 
forever.” 

“Which I don’t want to do yet,” said Jone, “so 
speak out your trouble.” 

“The trouble this time is you,” said I, “and your 
awful meekness. I never did see anybody anywhere 
as meek as you are in that dining-room. A half- 
drowned fly put into the sun to dry would be over- 
20 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


bearing and supercilious compared to you. When 
you sit down at one of those tables you look as if you 
was afraid of hurting the chair, and when the waiter 
gives you the bill of fare you ask him what the French 
words mean, and then he looks down on you as if he 
was a superior Jove contemplating a hop-toad, and 
he tells you that this one means beef and the other 
means potatoes, and brings you the things that are 
easiest to get. And you look as if you was thankful 
from the bottom of your heart that he is good enough 
to give you anything at all. All the airs I put on 
are no good while you are so extra humble. I tell 
him I don’t want this French thing,— when I don’t 
know what it is,— and he must bring me some of the 
other, — which I never heard of, — and when it comes I 
eat it, no matter what it turns out to be, and try to 
look as if I was used to it, but generally had it better 
cooked. But, as I said before, it is of no use— your 
humbleness is too much for me. In a few days they 
will be bringing us cold victuals, and recommending 
that we go outside somewhere and eat them, as all 
the seats in the dining-room are wanted for other 
people.” 

“Well,” said Jone, “I must say, I do feel a little 
overshadowed when I go into that dining-room and 
see those proud and haughty waiters, some of them 
with silver chains and keys around their necks, show- 
ing that they are lords of the wine-cellar, and all of 
them with an air of lofty scorn for the poor beings 
who have to sit still and be waited on. But I’ll try 
what I can do. As far as I am able, I’ll hold up my . 
end of the social boom.” 

You may think I break off my letters sudden. 

21 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


madam, like the instalments in a sensation weekly, 
which stops short in the most harrowing parts, so as 
to make certain the reader will buy the next number. 
But when I’ve written as much as I think two foreign 
stamps will carry— for more than fivepence seems 
extravagant for a letter— I generally stop. 


22 


LETTEE NUMBEE THEEE 


London. 

At dinner-time the day when I had the conversation 
with Jone mentioned in my last letter, we was sitting 
in the dining-room at a little table in a far corner, 
where we’d never been before. Not being considered 
of any importance, they put us sometimes in one place 
and sometimes in another, instead of giving us regu- 
lar seats, as I noticed most of the other people had, 
and I was looking around to see if anybody was ever 
coming to wait on us, when suddenly I heard an 
awful noise. 

I have read about the rumblings of earthquakes, 
and although I never heard any of them, I have felt 
a shock, and I can imagine the awfulness of the 
rumbling, and I had a feeling as if the building was 
about to sway and swing as they do in earthquakes. 
It wasn’t all my imagining, for I saw the people at 
the other tables near us jump, and two waiters who 
was hurrying past stopped short as if they had been 
jerked up by a curb-bit. I turned to look at Jone, 
but he was sitting up straight in his chair, as solemn 
and as steadfast as a gate-post, and I thought to my- 
self that if he hadn’t heard anything he must have 
been struck deaf, and I was just on the point of jump- 
23 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


ing up and shouting to him, “Fly, before the walls 
and roof come down upon us ! ” when that awful noise 
occurred again. My blood stood frigid in my veins, 
and as I started back I saw before me a waiter, his 
face ashy pale, and his knees bending beneath him. 
Some people near us were half getting up from their 
chairs, and I pushed back and looked at Jone again, 
who had not moved, except that his mouth was open. 
Then I knew what it was that I thought was an earth- 
quake — it was Jone giving an order to the waiter. 

I bit my lips and sat silent. The people around 
kept on looking at us, and the poor man who was 
receiving the shock stood trembling like a leaf. 
When the volcanic disturbance, so to speak, was 
over, the waiter bowed himself, as if he had been a 
heathen in a temple, and gasping, “Yes, sir, immedi- 
ate, 1 ” glided unevenly away. He hadn’t waited on 
us before, and little thought, when he was going to 
stride proudly past our table, what a double-loaded 
Vesuvius was sitting in Jone’s chair. I leaned over 
the table and said to Jone that if he would stick to 
that we could rent a bishopric if we wanted to, and I 
was so proud I could have patted him on the back. 
Well, after that we had no more trouble about being 
waited on, for that waiter of ours went about as if he 
had his neck bared for the fatal stroke and Jone was 
holding the cimeter. 

The head waiter came to us before we was done 
dinner, and asked if we had everything we wanted, 
and if that table suited us, because, if it did, we could 
always have it. To which Jone distantly thundered 
that if he would see that it always had a clean table- 
cloth it would do well enough. 

24 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


Even the man who stood at the big table in the 
middle of the room and carved the cold meats, with 
his hair parted in the middle, and who looked as if he 
were saying to himself, as with a bland dexterity and 
tastefulness he laid each slice upon its plate, “Now, 
then, the socialistic movement in Paris is arrested for 
the time being, and here again I put an end to the 
hopes of Russia getting to the sea through Afghan- 
istan, and now I carefully spread contentment over 
the minds of all them riotous Welsh miners,’ 7 — even 
he turned around and bowed to us as we passed him, 
and once sent a waiter to ask if we’d like a little bit 
of potted beef, which was particularly good that day. 

Jone kept up his rumblings, though they sounded 
more distant and more deep underground, and one 
day, at luncheon, an elderly woman, who was sitting 
alone at a table near us, turned to me and spoke. 
She was a very plain person, with her face all seamed 
and rough with exposure to the weather, like as if 
she had been captain to a pilot-boat, and with a 
general appearance of being a cook with good rec- 
ommendations, but at present out of a place. I 
might have wondered at such a person being at such 
a hotel, but remembering what I had been myself, I 
couldn’t say what mightn’t happen to other people. 

“I’m glad to see,” said she, “that you sent away 
that mutton, for if more persons would object to 
things that are not properly cooked we’d all be better 
served. I suppose that in your country most people 
are so rich that they can afford to have the best of 
everything, and have it always. I fancy the great 
wealth of American citizens must make their house- 
keeping very different from ours.” 

25 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


Now, I must say I began to bristle at being spoken 
to like that. I’m as proud of being an American as 
anybody can be, but I don’t like tbe home of the free 
thrown into my teeth every time I open my mouth. 
There’s no knowing what money Jone and I have lost 
through giving orders to London cabmen in what is 
called our American accent. The minute we tell the 
driver of a hansom where we want to go, that place 
doubles its distance from the spot we start from. 
Now, I think the great reason Jone’s rumbling worked 
so well was that it had in it a sort of Great British 
chest sound, as if his lungs was rusty. The waiter 
had heard that before, and knew what it meant. If 
he had spoken out in the clear American fashion, I 
expect his voice would have gone clear through the 
waiter without his knowing it, like the person in the 
story, whose neck was sliced through, and who didn’t 
know it until he sneezed and his head fell off. 

“Yes, ma’am,” said I, answering her with as much 
of a wearied feeling as I could put on, “our wealth is 
all very well in some ways, but it is dreadful wearing 
on us. However, we try to bear up under it and be 
content.” 

“Well,” said she, “contentment is a great blessing 
in every station, though I have never tried it in yours. 
Do you expect to make a long stay in London ? ” 

As she seemed like a civil and well-meaning woman, 
and was the first person who had spoken to us in a 
social way, I didn’t mind talking to her, and I told 
her we was only stopping in London until we could 
find the kind of country house we wanted, and when 
she asked what kind that was, I described what we 
wanted, and how we was still answering advertise- 
26 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


ments and going to see agents, who was always recom- 
mending exactly the kind of house we did not care for. 

“ Vicarages are all very well/ 7 said she, “but it 
sometimes happens, and has happened to friends of 
mine, that when a vicar has let his house he makes up 
his mind not to waste his money in travelling, and he 
takes lodgings near by, and keeps an eternal eye upon 
his tenants. I don’t believe any independent Ameri- 
can would fancy that.” 

“No, indeed,” said I. And then she went on to say 
that if we wanted a small country house for a month 
or two, she knew of one which she believed would suit 
us, and it wasn’t a vicarage, either. When I asked 
her to tell me about it, she brought her chair up to 
our table, together with her mug of beer, her bread 
and cheese, and she went into particulars about the 
house she knew of. 

“It is situated,” said she, “in the west of England, 
in the most beautiful part of our country. It is near 
one of the quaintest little villages that the past ages 
have left us, and not far away are the beautiful waters 
of the Bristol Channel, with the mountains of Wales, 
rising against the sky on the horizon, and all about 
are hills and valleys, and woods and beautiful moors 
and babbling streams, with all the loveliness of culti- 
vated rurality merging into the wild beauties of una- 
dorned nature.” If these was not exactly her words, 
they express the ideas she roused in my mind. She 
said the place was far enough away from railways and 
the stream of travel, and among the simple peasantry, 
and that in the society of the resident gentry we would 
see English country life as it is, uncontaminated by 
the tourist or the commercial traveller. 


27 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


I can’t remember all the things she said about this 
charming cottage in this most supremely beautiful 
spot, but I sat and listened, and the description held 
me spellbound, as a snake fascinates a frog— with this 
difference : instead of being swallowed by the descrip- 
tion, I swallowed it. 

When the old woman had given us the address of 
the person who had the letting of the cottage, and 
Jone and me had gone to our room, I said to him, be- 
fore we had time to sit down : 

“What do you think? ” 

“I think,” said he, “that we ought to follow that 
old woman’s advice, and go and look at this house.” 

“Go and look at it !” I exclaimed. “Not a bit of 
it. If we do that, we are bound to see something or 
hear something that will make us hesitate and con- 
sider, and if we do that, away goes our enthusiasm 
and our rapture. I say, telegraph this minute and 
say we’ll take the house, and send a letter by the 
next mail with a postal order in it, to secure the 
place.” 

Jone looked at me hard, and said he’d feel easier 
in his mind if he understood what I was talking about. 

“Never mind understanding,” I said. “Go down 
and telegraph we’ll take the house. There isn’t a 
minute to lose ! ” 

“But,” said Jone, “if we find out when we get 
there—” 

“Never mind that,” said I. “If we find out when 
we get there it isn’t all we thought it was,— and we’re 
bound to do that,— we’ll make the best of what doesn’t 
suit us, because it can’t be helped. But if we go and 
look at it, it’s ten to one we won’t take it.” 

28 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


“How long are we to take it for? ” said Jone. 

“A month anyway, and perhaps longer,” I told 
him, giving him a push toward the door. 

“All right,” said he, and he went and telegraphed. 

I believe if Jone was told he could go anywhere 
and stay for a month, he’d choose that place from 
among all the most enchanting spots on the earth 
where he couldn’t stay so long. As for me, the one 
thing that held me was the romanticness of the place. 
From what the old woman said, I knew there couldn’t 
be any mistake about that, and if I could find myself 
the mistress of a romantic cottage near an ancient 
village of the olden time, I would put up with most 
everything except dirt, and as dirt and me seldom 
keeps company very long, even that can’t frighten 
me. 

When I saw the old woman at luncheon the next 
day, and told her what we had done, she was fairly 
dumfounded. 

“Really! really!” she said, “you Americans are 
the speediest people I ever did see. Why, an English 
person would have taken a week to consider that 
place before taking it.” 

“And lost it, ten to one,” said I. 

She shook her head. 

“Well,” said she, “I suppose it’s on account of your 
habits, and you can’t help it, but it’s a poor way of 
doing business.” 

Now, I began to think from this that her conscience 
was beginning to trouble her for having given so 
fairy -like a picture of the house, and as I was afraid 
that she might think it her duty to bring up some 
disadvantages, I changed the conversation and got 
29 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


away as soon as I could. When we once get seated 
at our humble board in our rural cot, I won’t be afraid 
of any bugaboos, but I didn’t want them brought up 
then. I can generally depend upon Jone, but some- 
times he gets a little stubborn. 

We didn’t see this old person any more, and when 
I asked the waiter about her the next day, he said he 
was sure she had left the hotel, by which I suppose he 
must have meant he’d got his half-crown. Her fading 
away in this fashion made it all seem like a myth or 
a phantasm, but when, the next morning, we got a 
receipt for the money Jone sent, and a note saying 
the house was ready for our reception, I felt myself 
on solid ground again, and to-morrow we start, bag 
and baggage, for Chedcombe, which is the name of 
the village where the house is that we have taken. 
I’ll write to you, madam, as soon as we get there, and 
I hope with all my heart and soul that when we see 
what’s wrong with it— and there’s bound to be some- 
thing — that it may not be anything bad enough to 
make us give it up and go floating off in voidness, 
like a spider-web blown before a summer breeze, with- 
out knowing what it’s going to run against and stick 
to, and, what is more, probably lose the money we 
paid in advance, 


30 


LETTER NUMBER FOUR 


Chedcombe, Somersetshire. 
Last winter Jone and I read all the books we could 
get about the rural parts of England, and we knew 
that the country must be very beautiful, but we had 
no proper idea of it until we came to Chedcombe. I 
am not going to write much about the scenery in this 
part of the country, because, perhaps, you have been 
here and seen it, and, anyway, my writing would not 
be half so good as what you could read in books, which 
don’t amount to anything. 

All I’ll say is that if you was to go over the whole 
of England, and collect a lot of smooth green hills, 
with sheep and deer wandering about on them ; 
brooks, with great trees hanging over them, and 
vines and flowers fairly crowding themselves into the 
water ; lanes and roads hedged in with hawthorn, 
wild roses, and tall purple foxgloves ; little woods 
and copses ; hills covered with heather ; thatched 
cottages like the pictures in drawing-books, with 
roses against their walls, and thin blue smoke curling 
up from the chimneys ; distant views of the sparkling 
sea ; villages which are nearly covered up by green- 
ness, except their steeples $ rocky cliffs all green with 
vines, and flowers spreading and thriving with the 
31 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


fervor and earnestness yon might expect to find in 
the tropics, but not here— and then, if you was to put 
all these points of scenery into one place not too big 
for your eye to sweep over and take it all in, you 
would have a country like that around Chedcombe. 

I am sure the old lady was right when she said it 
was the most beautiful part of England. The first 
day we was here we carried an umbrella as we walked 
through all this verdant loveliness, but yesterday 
morning we went to the village and bought a couple 
of thin mackintoshes, which will save us a lot of 
trouble opening and shutting umbrellas. 

When we got out at the Chedcombe station, we 
found a man there with a little carriage he called a 
fly, who said he had been sent to take us to our house. 
There was also a van to carry our baggage. We drove 
entirely through the village, which looked to me as if 
a bit of the middle ages had been turned up by the 
plough, and on the other edge of it there was our 
house, and on the door step stood a lady with a smil- 
ing eye and an umbrella, and who turned out to be 
our landlady. Back of her was two other females, 
one of them looking like a minister’s wife, while the 
other one I knew to be a servant-maid by her cap. 

The lady, whose name was Mrs. Shutterfield, shook 
hands with us, and seemed very glad to see us, and 
the minister’s wife took our hand-bags from us and 
told the men where to carry our trunks. Mrs. Shut- 
terfield took us into a little parlor on one side of the 
hall, and then we three sat down, and I must say I 
was so busy looking at the queer, delightful room, 
with everything in it— chairs, tables, carpets, walls, 
pictures, and flower- vases— all belonging to a bygone 
32 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


epoch, though perfectly fresh, as if just made, that I 
could scarcely pay attention to what the lady said. 
But I listened enough to know that Mrs. Shutterfield 
told us that she had taken the liberty of engaging for 
us two most excellent servants, who had lived in the 
house before it had been let to lodgers, and who, she 
was quite sure, would suit us very well, though, of 
course, we were at liberty to do what we pleased about 
engaging them. The one that I took for the minis- 
ter’s wife was a combination of cook and housekeeper, 
by the name of Miss Pondar, and the other was a 
maid in general, named Hannah. When the lady 
mentioned two servants it took me a little aback, for 
we had not expected to have more than one, but when 
she mentioned the wages, and I found that both put 
together did not cost as much as a very poor cook 
would expect in America, and when I remembered 
we was now at work socially booming ourselves, and 
that it wouldn’t do to let this lady think that we had 
not been accustomed to varieties of servants, I spoke 
up and said we would engage the two estimable 
women she recommended, and was much obliged to 
her for getting them. 

Then we went over that house, down-stairs and up, 
and of all the lavender-smelling, old-fashionedness 
anybody ever dreamed of, this little house has as 
much as it can hold. It is fitted up all through like 
one of your mother’s bonnets, which she bought be- 
fore she was married, and never wore on account of a 
funeral in the family, but kept shut up in a box, which 
she only opens now and then to show to her descend- 
ants. In every room and on the stairs there was a 
general air of antiquated freshness, mingled with the 
33 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


odors of English breakfast tea and recollections of the 
story of 11 Cranford/ 7 which, if Jone and me had been 
alone, would have made me dance from the garret of 
that house to the cellar. Every sentiment of romance 
that I had in my soul bubbled to the surface, and I 
felt as if I was one of my ancestors before she emi- 
grated to the colonies. I could not say what I 
thought, but I pinched Jone’s arm whenever I could 
get a chance, which relieved me a little. And when 
Miss Pondar had come to me, with a little courtesy, 
and asked me what time I would like to have dinner, 
and told me what she had taken the liberty of order- 
ing, so as to have everything ready by the time I 
came, and Mrs. Shutterfield had gone, after begging 
to know what more she could do for us, and we had 
gone to our own room, I let out my feelings in one 
wild scream of delirious gladness that would have been 
heard all the way to the railroad station if I had not 
covered my head with two pillows and the corner of 
a blanket. 

After we had dinner, which was as English as the 
British lion, and much more to our taste than any- 
thing we had had in London, Jone went out to smoke 
a pipe, and I had a talk with Miss Pondar about fish, 
meat, and groceries, and about housekeeping matters 
in general. Miss Pondar, whose general aspect of 
minister’s wife began to wear off when I talked to 
her, mingles respectfulness and respectability in a 
manner I haven’t been in the habit of seeing. Gen- 
erally those two things run against each other, but 
they don’t in her. 

When she asked what kind of wine we preferred, I 
must say I was struck all in a heap, for wines to Jone 
34 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


and me is like a trackless wilderness without compass 
or binnacle light, and we seldom drink them except 
made hot, with nutmeg grated in, for colic. But as I 
wanted her to understand that if there was any luxu- 
ries we didn’t order, it was because we didn’t approve 
of them, I told her that we was total abstainers, and 
at that she smiled very pleasant, and said that was her 
persuasion also, and that she was glad not to be obliged 
to handle intoxicating drinks, though, of course, she 
always did it without objection when the family used 
them. When I told Jone this he looked a little blank, 
for foreign water generally doesn’t agree with him. 
I mentioned this afterwards to Miss Pondar, and she 
said it was very common in total abstaining families, 
when water didn’t agree with any one of them, espe- 
cially if it happened to be the gentleman, to take a 
little good Scotch whiskey with it. But when I told 
this to Jone he said he would try to bear up under 
the shackles of abstinence. 

This morning, when I was talking with Miss Pondar 
about fish, and trying to show her that I knew some- 
thing about the names of English fishes, I said that 
we was very fond of whitebait. At this she looked 
astonished for the first time. 

“ Whitebait?” said she. “We always looked upon 
that as belonging entirely to the nobility and gentry.” 

At this my back began to bristle, but I didn’t let her 
know it, and I said, in a tone of emphatic mildness, 
that we would have whitebait twice a week, on Tues- 
day and Friday. At this Miss Pondar gave a little 
courtesy and thanked me very much, and said she 
would attend to it. 

When Jone and me came back after taking a long 
35 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


walk that morning, I saw a pair of Church of England 
prayer-books, looking as if they had just been neatly 
dusted, lying on the parlor table, where they hadn’t 
been before, for I had carefully looked over every 
book. I think that when it was borne in upon Miss 
Pondar’s soul that we was accustomed to having white- 
bait as a regular thing, she made up her mind we was 
all right, and that nothing but the Established Church 
would do for us. Before, she might have thought we 
was Wesley ans. 

Our maid Hannah is very nice to look at, and does 
her work as well as anybody could do it, and, like 
most other English servants, she’s in a state of never- 
ending thankfulness, but as I can never understand a 
word she says except “ Thank you very much,” I asked 
Jone if he didn’t think it would be a good thing for 
me to try to teach her a little English. 

“Now, then,” said he, “that’s the opening of a big 
subject. Wait until I fill my pipe, and we’ll discourse 
upon it.” 

It was just after luncheon, and we was sitting in 
the summer-house at the end of the garden, looking 
out over the roses and pinks and all sorts of old- 
timey flowers growing as thick as clover-heads, 
with an air as if it wasn’t the least trouble in the 
world to them to flourish and blossom. Beyond the 
flowers was a little brook with the ducks swimming in 
it, and beyond that was a field, and on the other side 
of that field was a park belonging to the lord of the 
manor, and scattered about the side of a green hill in 
the park was a herd of his lordship’s deer. Most of 
them was so light-colored that I fancied I could almost 
see through them, as if they was the little transparent 
36 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


bugs that crawl about on leaves. That isn’t a ro- 
mantic idea to have about deers, but I can’t get rid of 
the notion whenever I see those little creatures walk- 
ing about on the hills. 

At that time it was hardly raining at all— just a 
little mist, with the sun coming into the summer-house 
every now and then, making us feel very comfortable 
and contented. 

“Now,” said Jone, when he had got his pipe well 
started, “what I want to talk about is the amount of 
reformation we expect to do while we’re sojourning in 
the kingdom of Great Britain.” 

“Reformation!” said I. “We didn’t come here to 
reform anything.” 

“Well,” said Jone, “if we’re going to busy our minds 
with these people’s shortcomings and long-goings, and 
don’t try to reform them, we’re just worrying ourselves, 
and doing them no good, and I don’t think it will pay. 
Now, for instance, there’s that rosy-cheeked Hannah. 
She’s satisfied with her way of speaking English, and 
Miss Pondar understands it and is satisfied with it, and 
all the people around here are satisfied with it. As 
for us, we know, when she comes and stands in the 
doorway and dimples up her cheeks, and then makes 
those sounds that are more like drops of molasses fall- 
ing on a gong than anything else I know of, we know 
that she is telling us in her own way that the next 
meal, whatever it is, is ready, and we go to it.” 

“Yes,” said I, “and as I do most of my talking with 
Miss Pondar, and as we shall be here for such a short 
time anyway, it may be as well — ” 

“What I say about Hannah,” said Jone, interrupt- 
ing me as soon as I began to speak about a short stay, 
37 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


“I have to say about everything else in England that 
doesn’t suit us. As long as Hannah doesn’t try to 
make us speak in her fashion, I say let her alone. Of 
course, we shall find a lot of things over here that we 
shall not approve of,— we knew that before we came, 
—and when we find we can’t stand their ways and 
manners any longer, we can pack up and go home, but 
so far as I’m concerned, I’m getting along very com- 
fortable so far.” 

“Oh, so am I,” I said to him, “and as to interfering 
with other people’s fashions, I don’t want to do it. If 
I was to meet the most paganish of heathens entering 
his temple with suitable humbleness, I wouldn’t hurt 
his feelings on the subject of his religion, unless I was 
a missionary and went about it systematic ; but if that 
heathen turned on me, and jeered at me for attending 
our church at home, and told me I ought to go down 
on my marrow-bones before his brazen idols, I’d 
whang him over the head with a frying-pan, or any- 
thing else that came handy. That’s the sort of thing 
I can’t stand. As long as the people here don’t snort 
and sniff at my ways, I won’t snort and sniff at theirs.” 

“Well,” said Jone, “that is a good rule, but I don’t 
know that it’s going to work altogether. You see, 
there are a good many people in this country, and only 
two of us, and it will be a lot harder for them to keep 
from sniffing and snorting than for us to do it. So 
it’s my opinion that if we expect to get along in a 
good-humored and friendly way, which is the only 
decent way of living, we’ve got to hold up our end of 
the business a little higher than we expect other 
people to hold up theirs.” 

I couldn’t agree altogether with Jone about our 
38 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


trying to do better than other people, but I said that 
as the British had been kind enough to make their 
country free to us, we wouldn’t look a gift-horse in 
the mouth unless it kicked. To which Jone said I 
sometimes got my figures of speech hind part fore- 
most, but he knew what I meant. 

We’ve lived in our cottage two weeks, and every 
morning when I get up and open our windows, which 
has little panes set in strips of lead, and hinges on one 
side so that it works like a door, and look out over 
the brook and the meadows and the thatched roofs, 
and see the peasant men with their short jackets and 
woollen caps, and the lower part of their trousers tied 
round with twine, if they don’t happen to have leather 
leggings, trudging to their work, my soul is filled with 
welling emotions as I think that if Queen Elizabeth 
ever travelled along this way, she must have seen these 
great old trees and, perhaps, some of these very houses. 
And as to the people, they must have been pretty 
much the same, though differing a little in clothes, I 
dare say, but, judging from Hannah, perhaps not very 
much in the kind of English they spoke. 

I declare that when Jone and me walk about 
through the village, and over the fields, for there is a 
right of way — meaning a little path— through most 
all of them, and when we go into the old church, 
with its yew-trees, and its gravestones, and its marble 
effigies of two of the old manor lords, both stretched 
flat on their backs, as large as life,— the gentleman with 
the end of his nose knocked off and with his feet 
crossed to show he was a crusader, and the lady with 
her hands clasped in front of her, as if she expected 
the generations who came to gaze on her tomb to 
39 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


guess what she had inside of them,— I feel like a char- 
acter in a novel. 

I have kept a great many of my joyful sentiments 
to myself, because Jone is too well contented as it is, 
and there is a great deal yet to be seen in England. 
Sometimes we hire a dog-cart and a black horse, named 
Punch, from the inn in the village, and we take long 
drives over roads that are almost as smooth as bowling- 
alleys. The country is very hilly, and every time 
we get to the top of a hill, we can see, spread about us 
for miles and miles, the beautiful hills and vales, and 
lordly residences and cottages, and steeple-tops, look- 
ing as though they had been stuck down here and 
there to show where villages had been planted. 


40 


LETTER NUMBER FIVE 


Chedcombe, Somersetshire. 
This morning, when Jone was out taking a walk, and 
I was talking to Miss Pondar, and getting her to teach 
me how to make Devonshire clotted cream, which we 
have for every meal, putting it on everything it will 
go on, into everything it will go into, and eating it 
by itself when there is nothing it will go on or into, 
and trying to find out why it is that whitings are 
always brought on the table with their tails stuck 
through their throats, as if they had committed suicide 
by cutting their jugular veins in this fashion, I saw, 
coming along the road to ou» cottage, a pretty little 
dog-cart with two ladies in it. The horse they drove 
was a pony, and the prettiest creature I ever saw, 
being formed like a full-sized horse, only very small, 
and with as much fire and spirit and gracefulness as 
could be got into an animal sixteen hands high. I 
heard afterwards that he came from Exmoor, which 
is about twelve miles from here, and produces ponies 
and deers of similar size and swiftness. They stopped 
at the door, and one of them got out and came in. 
Miss Pondar told me she wished to see me, and that 
she was Mrs. Locky of the “Bordley Arms ” in the 
village. 


41 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


“The innkeeper’s wife?” said I, to which Miss Pon- 
dar said it was, and I went into the parlor. Mrs. 
Locky was a handsome-looking lady, and wearing as 
stylish clothes as if she was a duchess, and extremely 
polite and respectful. 

She said she would have asked Mrs. Shutterfield to 
come with her and introduce her, but that lady was 
away from home, and so she had come by herself to 
ask me a very great favor. 

When I begged her to sit down and name it, she 
went on to say there had come that morning to the 
inn a very large party in a coach and four, that was 
making a trip through the country, and as they didn’t 
travel on Sunday, they wanted to stay at the Bordley 
Arms until Monday morning. 

“Now,” said she, “that puts me to a dreadful lot of 
trouble, because I haven’t room to accommodate them 
all, and even if I could get rooms for them somewhere 
else, they don’t want to be separated. But there is 
one of the best rooms at the inn which is occupied by 
an elderly gentleman, and if I could get that room I 
could put two double beds in it and so accommodate 
the whole party. Now, knowing that you had a 
pleasant chamber here that you don’t use, I thought 
I would make bold to come and ask you if you would 
lodge Mr. Poplington until Monday.” 

“What sort of a person is this Mr. Poplington, and 
is he willing to come here ? ” 

“Oh, I haven’t asked him yet,” said she, “but he is 
so extremely good-natured that I know he will be glad 
to come here. He has often asked me who lived in 
this extremely picturesque cottage.” 

“You must have an answer now?” said I. 


42 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


“Oh, yes,” said she, “for if you cannot do me this 
favor I must go somewhere else, and where to go I 
don’t know.” 

Now, I had begun to think that the one thing we 
wanted in this little home of ours was company, and 
that it was a great pity to have that nice bedroom on 
the second floor entirely wasted, with nobody ever in 
it. So, as far as I was concerned, I would be very 
glad to have some pleasant person in the house, at 
least for a day or two, and I didn’t believe Jone would 
object. At any rate, it would put a stop, at least for 
a little while, to his eternally saying how Corinne, our 
daughter, would enjoy that room, and how nice it 
would be if we was to take this house for the rest of 
the season and send for her. Now, Corinne’s as happy 
as she can be at her grandmother’s farm, and her 
school will begin before we’re ready to come home, 
and, what is more, we didn’t come here to spend all 
our time in one place. 

While I was thinking of these things I was looking 
out of the window at the lady in the dog-cart, who was 
holding the reins. She was as pretty as a picture, 
and wore a great straw hat with lovely flowers in it. 
As I had to give an answer without waiting for Jone 
to come home, and I didn’t expect him until luncheon- 
time, I concluded to be neighborly, and said we would 
take the gentleman to oblige her. Even if the ar- 
rangement didn’t suit him or us, it wouldn’t matter 
much for that little time. At which Mrs. Locky was 
very grateful indeed, and said she would have Mr. 
Poplington’s luggage sent around that afternoon, and 
that he would come later. 

As she got up to go, I said to her, “Is that young 
43 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


lady out there one of the party who came with the 
coach and four ? ” 

“Oh, no,” said Mrs. Locky, “she lives with me. She 
is the young lady who keeps the bar.” 

I expect I opened my mouth and eyes pretty wide, 
for I was never so astonished. A young lady like that 
keeping the bar ! But I didn’t want Mrs. Locky to 
know how much I was surprised, and so I said noth- 
ing about it. 

When they had gone, and I had stood looking after 
them for about a minute, I remembered I hadn’t asked 
whether Mr. Poplington would want to take his meals 
here, or whether he would go to the inn for them. 
To be sure, she only asked me to lodge him, but as 
the inn is more than half a mile from here, he may 
want to be boarded. But this will have to be found 
out when he comes, and when Jone comes home it 
will have to be found out what he thinks about my 
taking a lodger while he’s out taking a walk. 


44 


LETTER NUMBER SIX 


Chedcombe, Somersetshire. 
When Jone came home, and I told him a gentleman 
was coming to live with us, he thought at first I was 
joking. And when he found out that I meant what I 
said, he looked very blue, and stood with his hands in 
his pockets and his eyes on the ground, considering. 

“He’s not going to take his meals here, is he? ” 

“I don’t think he expects that,” I said, “for Mrs. 
Locky only spoke of lodging.” 

“Oh, well,” said Jone, looking as if his clouds was 
clearing off a little, “I don’t suppose it will matter to 
us if that room is occupied over Sunday, but I think 
the next time I go out for a stroll I’ll take you with 
me.” 

I didn’t go out that afternoon, and sat on pins and 
needles until half-past five o’clock. Jone wanted me 
to walk with him, but I wouldn’t do it, because I 
didn’t want our lodger to come here and be received 
by Miss Pondar. At half-past five there came a cart 
with the gentleman’s luggage, as they call it here, and 
I was glad Jone wasn’t at home. There was an enor- 
mous leather portmanteau, which looked as if it had 
been dragged by a boy too short to lift it from the 
ground, half over the world, a hat-box, also of leather, 
45 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


but not so draggy-looking, a bundle of canes and um- 
brellas, a leather dressing-case, and a flat, round bath- 
ing-tub. I had the things taken up to the room as 
quickly as I could, for if Jone had seen them he’d think 
the gentleman was going to bring his family with him. 

It was nine o’ clock and still broad daylight when 
Mr. Poplington himself came, carrying a fishing-rod 
put up in parts in a canvas bag, a fish-basket, and a 
small valise. He wore leather leggings and was about 
sixty years old, but a wonderful good walker. I 
thought, when I saw him coming, that he had no 
rheumatism whatever, but I found out afterwards 
that he had a little in one of his arms. He had white 
hair and white side-whiskers and a fine red face, which 
made me think of a strawberry partly covered with 
Devonshire clotted cream. Jone and I was sitting in 
the summer-house, he smoking his pipe, and we both 
went to meet the gentleman. He had a bluff way of 
speaking, and said he was much obliged to us for tak- 
ing him in, and after saying that it was a warm even- 
ing, a thing which I hadn’t noticed, he asked to be 
shown to his room. I sent Hannah with him, and 
then Jone and I went back to the summer-house. 

I didn’t know exactly why, but I wasn’t in as good 
spirits as I had been, and when Jone spoke he didn’t 
make me feel any better. 

“It seems to me,” said he, “that I see signs of weak- 
ening in the social boom. That man considers us 
exactly as we considered our lodging-house keeper in 
London. How, it doesn’t strike me that that sample 
person you was talking about, who is a cross between 
a rich farmer and a poor gentleman, would go into 
the lodging-house business.” 

46 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


I couldn’t help agreeing with Jone, and I didn’t like 
it a bit. The gentleman hadn’t said anything or done 
anything that was out of the way, but there was a 
benignant loftiness about him which grated on the 
inmost fibres of my soul. 

“I’ll tell you what we’ll do,” said I, turning sharp 
on Jone : “we won’t charge him a cent. That’ll take 
him down, and show him what we are. We’ll give 
him the room as a favor to Mrs. Locky, considering 
her in the light of a neighbor and one who sent us a 
cucumber.” 

“All right,” said Jone, “I like that way of arrang- 
ing the business. Up goes the social boom again ! ” 

Just as we was going up to bed, Miss Pondar came 
to me and said that the gentleman had called down to 
her and asked if he could have a new-laid egg for his 
breakfast, and she asked if she should send Hannah 
early in the morning to see if she could get a perfectly 
fresh egg from one of the cottages. “I thought, 
ma’am, that perhaps you might object to buying 
things on Sunday.” 

“I do,” I said. “Hoes that Mr. Poplington expect 
to have his breakfast here? I only took him to 
lodge.” 

“Oh, ma’am,” said Miss Pondar, “they always takes 
their breakfasts where they has their rooms. Dinner 
and luncheon is different, and he may expect to go to 
the inn for them.” 

“Indeed!” said I. “I think he may. And if he 
breakfasts here he can take what we’ve got. If the 
eggs are not fresh enough for him he can try to get 
along with some bacon. He can’t expect that to be 
fresh.” 


47 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


Knowing that English people take their breakfast 
late, Jone and I got up early, so as to get through 
before our lodger came down. But, bless me, when 
we went to the front door to see what sort of a day it 
was, we saw him coming in from a walk. “Fine morn- 
ing, said he, and, in fact, there was only a little drizzle 
^of rain, which might stop when the sun got higher, 
and he stood near us and began to talk about the 
trout in the stream, which, to my utter amazement, 
he called a river. 

“Do you take your license by the day or week?” 
he said to Jone. 

“License ! ” said Jone. “I don’t fish.” 

“Really ! ” exclaimed Mr. Poplington. “Oh, I see : 
you are a cycler.” 

“Ko,” said Jone, “I’m not that, either. I’m a per- 
vader.” 

“Really ! ” said the old gentleman. “What do you 
mean by that? ” 

“I mean that I pervade the scenery, sometimes on 
foot and sometimes in a trap. That’s my style of 
rural pleasuring.” 

“But you do fish at home,” I said to Jone, not wish- 
ing the English gentleman to think my husband was 
a city man, who didn’t know anything about sport. 

“Oh, yes,” said Jone, “I used to fish for perch and 
sunfish.” 

“Sunfish?” said Mr. Poplington. “I don’t know 
that fish at all. What sort of a fly do you use ? ” 

“I don’t fish with any flies at all,” said Jone. “I 
bait my hook with worms.” 

Mr. Poplington’s face looked as if he had poured 
liquid shoe-blacking on his meat, thinking it was 
48 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


Worcestershire sauce. “ Fancy ! Worms! I’d never 
take a rod in my hands if I had to use worms. Never 
used a worm in my life. There’s no sort of science in 
worm-fishing.” 

“ There’s double sport,” said Jone, “for first you’ve 
got to catch your worm. Then again, I hate shams. 
If you have to catch fish, there’s no use cheating them 
into the bargain.” 

“Cheat ! ” cried Mr. Poplington. “If I had to catch 
a whale I’d fish for him with a fly. But you Ameri- 
cans are strange people. Worms, indeed ! ” 

“We don’t all use worms,” said Jone. “There’s lots 
of fly-fishers in America, and they use all sorts of flies. 
If we are to believe all the Californians tell us, some 
of the artificial flies out there must be as big as 
crows.” 

“Really?” said Mr. Poplington, looking hard at 
Jone, with a little twinkling in his eyes. “And when 
gentlemen fish who don’t like to cheat the fishes, what 
size of worms do they use ? ” 

“Well,” said Jone, “in the far West I’ve heard that 
the common black-snake is the favorite bait. He’s 
six or seven feet long, and fishermen that use him 
don’t have to have any line. He’s bait and line all 
in one.” 

Mr. Poplington laughed. “I see you are fond of a 
joke,” said he, “and so am I, but I’m also fond of my 
breakfast.” 

“I’m with you there,” said Jone, and we all went in. 

Mr. Poplington was very pleasant and chatty, and, 
of course, asked a great many questions about America. 
Nearly all English people I’ve met want to talk about 
our country, and it seems to me that what they do 
49 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


know about it isn’t any better, considered as useful 
information, than what they don’t know. But Mr. 
Poplington has never been to America, and so he 
knows more , about us than those Englishmen who 
come over to write books, and only have time to run 
around the outside of things, and get themselves 
tripped up on our ragged edges. 

He said he had met a good many Americans, and 
liked them, but he couldn’t see for the life of him why 
they do some things English people don’t do, and don’t 
do things English people do do. For instance, he 
wondered why we don’t drink tea for breakfast. 
Miss Pondar had made it for him, knowing he’d want 
it, and he wonders why Americans drink coffee when 
such good tea as that was comes in their reach. 

Now, if I had considered Mr. Poplington as a lodger 
it might have nettled me to have him tell me I didn’t 
know what was good, but remembering that we was 
giving him hospitality, and not board, and didn’t 
intend to charge him a cent, but was just taking care 
of him out of neighborly kindness, I was rather glad 
to have him find a little fault, because that would 
make me feel as if I was soaring still higher above 
him the next morning, when I should tell him there 
was nothing to pay. 

So I took it all good-natured, and said to him : 
“Well, Americans like to have the very best things 
that can be got out of every country. We’re like 
bees flying over the whole world, looking into every 
blossom to see what sweetness there is to be got out 
of it. From the lily of France we sip their coffee. 
From the national flower of India, whatever it is, we 
take their chutney sauce. And as to those big apple- 
50 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


tarts, baked in a deep dish, with a cnp in the middle 
to hold up the upper crust, and so full of apples, and 
so delicious with Devonshire clotted cream on them, 
that if there was any one place in the world they 
could be had I believe my husband would want to go 
and live there forever, they are what we extract from 
the rose of England.’ 7 

Mr. Poplington laughed like anything at this, but 
said there was a great many other things that he could 
show us and tell us about which would be very well 
worth while sipping from the rose of England. 

After breakfast he went to church with us, and as 
we was coming home— for he didn’t seem to have the 
least idea of going to the inn for his luncheon— he 
asked if we didn’t find the services very different from 
those in America. 

“Yes,” said I, “they are about as different from 
Quaker services as a squirting fountain is from a 
corked bottle. The Methodists and Unitarians and 
Reformed Dutch and Campbellites and Hard-shell 
Baptists have different services, too, but in the Epis- 
copal churches things are all pretty much the same as 
they did this morning. You forget, sir, that in our 
country there are religions to suit all sizes of minds. 
We haven’t any national religion any more than we 
have a national flower.” 

“But you ought to have,” said he. “You ought to 
have an established church.” 

“You may be sure we’ll have it,” said Jone, “as soon 
as we agree as to which one it ought to be.” 


51 


LETTER NUMBER SEVEN 


Chedcombe, Somersetshire. 
Last Sunday afternoon Mr. Poplington asked us if we 
would not like to walk over to a ruined abbey about 
four miles away, which he said was very interesting. 
It seemed to me that four miles there and four miles 
back was a pretty long walk, but I wanted to see the 
abbey, and I wasn’t going to let him think that a 
young American woman couldn’t walk as far as an 
elderly English gentleman, so I agreed and so did 
Jone. The abbey is a wonderful place, and I never 
thought of being tired while wandering in the rooms 
and in the garden, where the old monks used to live 
and preach, and give food to the poor, and keep house 
without women— which was pious enough, but must 
have been untidy. But the thing that surprised me 
the most was what Mr. Poplington told us about the 
age of the place. It was not built all at once, and 
it’s part ancient and part modern, and you needn’t 
wonder, madam, that I was astonished when he said 
that the part called modern was finished just three 
years before America was discovered. When I heard 
that, I seemed to shrivel up as if my country was a 
new-born babe alongside of a bearded patriarch. But 
I didn’t stay shrivelled long, for it can’t be denied 
52 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


that a new-born babe has a good deal more to look 
forward to than a patriarch has. 

It is amazing how many things in this part of the 
country we’d never have thought of if it hadn’t been 
for Mr. Poplington. At dinner he told us about 
Exmoor and the Lorna Doone country, and the wild 
deer hunting that can be had nowhere else in Eng- 
land, and lots of other things that made me feel we 
must be up and doing if we wanted to see all we 
ought to see before we left Chedcombe. When I 
went up-stairs I said to Jone that Mr. Poplington was 
a very different man from what I thought he was. 

“He’s just as nice as he can be, and I’m going to 
charge him for his room and his meals and for every- 
thing he’s had.” 

Jone laughed, and asked me if that was the way I 
showed people I liked them. 

“We intended to humble him by not charging him 
anything,” I said, “and make him feel he had been 
depending on our bounty. But now I wouldn’t hurt 
his feelings for the world, and I’ll make out his bill 
in the morning myself. Women always do that sort 
of thing in England.” 

As you asked me, madam, to tell you everything 
that happened on our travels, I’ll go on about Mr. 
Poplington. After breakfast on Monday morning he 
went over to the inn, and said he would come back 
and pack up his things. But when he did come back 
he told us that those coach-and-four people had de- 
termined not to leave Chedcombe that day, but was 
going to stay and look at the sights in the neighbor- 
hood, and that they would want the room for that 
night. He said this had made him very angry, be- 
53 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


cause they had no right to change their minds that 
way after having made definite arrangements in which 
other people besides themselves was concerned, and 
he had said so very plainly to the gentleman who 
seemed to be at the head of the party. 

“I hope it will be no inconvenience to you, madam,” 
he said, “to keep me another night.” 

“Oh, dear, no,” said I. “And my husband was say- 
ing this morning that he wished you was going to 
stay with us the rest of our time here.” 

“Really ! ” exclaimed Mr. Poplington. “Then I’ll 
do it. I’ll go to the inn this minute and have the 
rest of my luggage brought over here. If this is any 
punishment to Mrs. Locky, she deserves it, for she 
shouldn’t have told those people they could stay 
longer without consulting me.” 

In less than an hour there came a van to our cot- 
tage with the rest of his luggage. There must have 
been over a dozen boxes and packages, besides things 
tied up and strapped, and as I saw them being carried 
up one at a time, I said to Miss Pondar that in our 
country we’d have two or three big trunks, which we 
could take about without any trouble. 

“Yes, ma’am,” said she, but I could see by her face 
that she didn’t believe luggage would be luggage un- 
less you could lug it, but was too respectful to say so. 

When Mr. Poplington got settled down in our spare 
room he blossomed out like a full-blown friend of the 
family, and accordingly began to give us advice. He 
said we should go as soon as we could and see Exmoor 
and all that region of country, and that, if we didn’t 
mind, he’d like to go with us. To which we answered, 
of course, we should like that very much, and asked 
54 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


him what he thought would be the best way to go. 
So we had ever so much talk about that, and although 
we all agreed it would be nicer not to take a public 
coach, but travel private, we didn’t find it easy to 
decide as to the manner of travel. We all agreed 
that a carriage and horses would be too expensive, 
and Jone was rather in favor of a dog- cart for us, if 
Mr. Poplington would like to go on horseback. But the 
old gentleman said it would be too much riding for 
him, and if we took a dog-cart he’d have to take an- 
other one. But this wouldn’t be a very sociable way 
of travelling, and none of us liked it. 

“Now,” exclaimed Mr. Poplington, striking his 
hand on the table, “I’ll tell you exactly how we 
ought to go through that country : we ought to go on 
cycles ! ” 

“Bicycles'?” said I. 

“Tricycles, if you like,” he answered, “but that’s 
the way to do it. It’ll be cheap, and we can go as we 
like and stop when we like. We’ll be as free and in- 
dependent as the Stars and Stripes, and more so, for 
they can’t always flap when they like and stop flap- 
ping when they choose. Have you ever tried it, 
madam ! ” 

I replied that I had, a little, because my daughter 
had a tricycle, and I had ridden on it for a short dis- 
tance and after sundown, but as for regular travel in 
the daytime, I couldn’t think of it. 

At this Jone nearly took my breath away by saying 
that he thought that the bicycle idea was a capital 
one, and that, for his part, he’d like it better than any 
other way of travelling through a pretty country. 
He also said he believed I could work a tricycle 
55 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


just as well as not, and that if I got used to it I would 
think it fine. 

I stood out against those two men for about a half 
an hour, and then I began to give in a little, and 
think that it might be nice to roll along on my own 
little wheels over their beautiful smooth roads, and 
stop and smell the hedges and pick flowers whenever 
I felt like it, and so it ended in my agreeing to do 
the Exmoor country on a tricycle, while Mr. Popling- 
ton and Jone went on bicycles. As to getting the 
machines, Mr. Poplington said he would attend to 
that. There was people in London who hired them 
to excursionists, and all he had to do was to send an 
order, and they would be on hand in a day or two, 
and so that matter was settled and he wrote to London. 
I thought Mr. Poplington was a little old for that 
sort of exercise, but I found he had been used to 
doing a great deal of cycling in the part of the coun- 
try where he lives, and besides, he isn’t as old as I 
thought he was, being not much over fifty. The kind 
of air that keeps a country always green is wonderful 
in bringing out early red and white in a person. 

“Everything happens wonderfully well, madam,” 
said he, coming in after he had been to post his letter 
in a red iron box let into the side of the Wesleyan 
chapel, “doesn’t it? Now, here we’re not able to 
start on our journey for two or three days, and I 
have just been told that the great hay-making in the 
big meadow to the south of the village is to begin to- 
morrow. They make the hay there only every other 
year, and they have a grand time of it. We must be 
there, and you shall see some of our English country 
customs.” 


56 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


We said we’d be sure to be in for that sort of thing, 

I wish, madam, you could have seen that great 
hay-field. It belongs to the lord of the manor, and 
must have twenty or thirty acres in it. They’ve been 
three or four days cutting the grass on it with a ma- 
chine, and now there’s been nearly two days with 
hardly any rain, only now and then some drizzling, 
and a good, strong wind, which they think here is 
better for the hay-making than sunshine, though they 
don’t object to a little sun. All the people in the vil- 
lage who had legs good enough to carry them to that 
field went to help make hay. It was a regular holi- 
day, and as hay is clean, nearly everybody was dressed 
in good clothes. Early in the morning some twenty 
regular farm-laborers began raking the hay at one end 
of the field, stretching themselves nearly the whole 
way across it, and as the day went on, more and more 
people came, men and women, high and low. All 
the young women and some of the older ones had 
rakes, and the way they worked them was amazing to 
see, but they turned over the hay enough to dry it. 
As to school-girls and -boys, there was no end of them 
in the afternoon, for school let out early. Some of 
them worked, but most of them played and cut up 
monkey-shines on the hay. Even the little babies was 
brought on the field, and nice, soft beds made for them 
under the trees at one side. 

When Jone saw the real farm- work going on, with 
a chance for everybody to turn in to help, his farmer 
blood boiled within him, as if he was a war-horse and 
sniffed the smoke of battle, and he got himself a rake 
and went to work like a good fellow. I never saw so 
many men at work in a hay-field at home, but when I 

57 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


looked at Jone raking, I could see why it was it didn’t 
take so many men to get in our hay. As for me, I 
raked a little, hut looked about a great deal more. 

Near the middle of the field was two women work- 
ing together, raking as steadily as if they had been 
brought up to it. One of these was young, and even 
handsomer than Miss Dick, which was the name of 
the bar-lady. To look at her made me think of what 
I had read of Queen Marie Antoinette and her court 
ladies playing the part of milkmaids. Her straw hat 
was trimmed with delicate flowers, and her white 
muslin dress and pale blue ribbons made her the 
prettiest picture I ever saw out of doors. I could not 
help asking Mrs. Locky who she was, and she told me 
that she was the chambermaid at the inn, and the 
other was the cook. When I heard this I didn’t make 
any answer, but just walked off a little way and began 
raking and thinking. I have often wondered why it 
is that English servants are so different from those we 
have, or, to put it in a strictly confidential way be- 
tween you and me, madam, why the chambermaid at 
the Bordley Arms, as she is, is so different from me, 
as I used to be when I first lived with you. Now, 
that young chambermaid with the pretty hat is, as 
far as appearances go, as good a woman as I am, and if 
Jone was a bachelor and intended to marry her I 
would think it was as good a match as if he married 
me. But the difference between us two is that when 
I got to be the kind of woman I am I wasn’t willing 
to be a servant, and if I had always been the kind of 
young woman that chambermaid is I never would 
have been a servant. 

I’ve kept a sharp eye on the young women in do- 
58 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


mestic service over here, having a fellow-feeling for 
them, as you can well understand, madam, and since 
I have been in the country I’ve watched the poor 
folks and seen how they live, and it’s just as plain to 
me as can be that the young women who are maids 
and waitresses over here are the kind who would 
have tried to be shop-girls and dressmakers and even 
school-teachers in America, and many of the servants 
we have would be working in the fields if they lived 
over here. The fact is, the English people don’t go 
to other countries to get their servants. Their way is 
like a factory consuming its own smoke. The surplus 
young women, and there must always be a lot of them, 
are used up in domestic service. 

Now, if an American poor girl is good enough to be 
a first-class servant, she wants to be something else. 
Sooner than go out to service, she will work twice as 
hard in a shop, or even go into a factory. 

I have talked a good deal about this to Jone, and 
he says I’m getting to be a philosopher. But I don’t 
think it takes much philosophizing to find out how 
this case stands. If house service could be looked 
upon in the proper way, it wouldn’t take long for 
American girls who have to work for their living to 
find out that it’s a lot better to live with nice people, 
and cook and wait on the table, and do all those things 
which come natural to women the world over, than to 
stand all day behind a counter under the thumb of a 
floor- walker, or grind their lives out like slaves among 
a lot of steam-engines and machinery. The only reason 
the English have better house-servants than we have is 
that here any girl who has to work is willing to be a house- 
servant, and very good house -servants they are, too. 

59 


LETTER NUMBER EIGHT 


Chedcombe, Somersetshire. 

I will now finish telling you about the great hay- 
making day. Toward the end of the afternoon a lot 
of boys and girls began playing a game which seemed 
to belong to the hay-field. Each one of the bigger 
boys would twist up a rope of hay and run after a 
girl, and when he had thrown it over her neck he 
could kiss her. Girls are girls the whole world over, 
and it was funny to see how some of them would run 
like mad to get away from the boys, and how dread- 
fully troubled they would be when they was caught, 
and yet, after they had been kissed and the boys had 
left them, they would walk innocently back to the 
players, as if they never dreamed that anybody would 
think of disturbing them. 

At five o’clock everybody— farm-hands, ladies, gen- 
tlemen, school-children, and all — took tea together. 
Some were seated at long tables made of planks, with 
benches at the sides, and others scattered all over the 
grass. Miss Pondar and our maid Hannah helped to 
serve the tea and sandwiches, and I was glad to see 
that Hannah wore her pointed white cap and her 
black dress, for I had on my woollen travelling-suit, 
60 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


and I didn’t want too much cart-before-the-horseness 
in my domestic establishment. 

After tea the work and the games began again, and 
as I think it is always better for people to do what 
they can do best, I turned in and helped clear away 
the tea-things, and after that I sat down by a female 
person in black silk,— and I am sure I didn’t know 
whether she was the lady of the manor or somebody 
else until I heard some ft-words come out in her talk, 
and then I knew she was the latter,— and she told me 
ever so much about the people in the village, and why 
the rector wasn’t there, on account of a dispute about 
the altar-cloths, and she was just beginning to tell me 
about the doctor’s wife sending her daughters to a 
school that was much too high-priced for his practice, 
when I happened to look across the field, and there, 
by the bar-lady at the inn, with her hat trimmed with 
pink, and by the Marie Antoinette chambermaid, with 
her hat trimmed with blue, was Jone, and they was 
all three raking together, as comfortable and confiding 
as if they had been singing hymns out of the same 
book. 

Now, I thought I had been sitting still long enough, 
and so I snipped off the rest of the doctor story, and 
got myself across that field with pretty long steps. 
When I reached the happy three I didn’t say anything, 
but went round in front of them and stood there, 
throwing a sarcastic and disdainful glance upon their 
farming. Jone stopped working, and wiped his face 
with his handkerchief, as if he was hot and tired, but 
hadn’t thought of it until just then, and the two girls 
they stopped, too. 

“He’s teaching us to rake, ma’am,” said Miss Dick, 
61 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


revolving her green-gage eyes in my direction, “and 
really, ma’am, it’s wonderful to see how good he does 
it. You Americans are so awful clever ! ” 

As for the one with the blue trimmings, she said 
nothing, but stood with her hands folded on her rake, 
and her chiselled features steeped in a meek resigned- 
ness, though much too high-colored, as though it had 
just been borne in upon her that this world is all a 
fleeting show, for man’s illusion given, and such 
felicity as culling fragrant hay by the side of that 
manly form must e’en be foregone by her, that I could 
have taken a handle of a rake and given her such a 
punch among her blue ribbons that her classic features 
would have frantically twined themselves around one 
resounding howl. But I didn’t. I simply remarked to 
Jone, with a statuesque rigidity, that it was six o’clock 
and I was going home, to which he said he was going 
too, and we went. 

“I thought,” said I, as we proceeded with rapid 
steps across the field, “that you didn’t come to Eng- 
land for the purpose of teaching the inhabitants.” 

Jone laughed a little. “That young lady put it 
rather strong,” he said. “She and her friend was 
merely trying to rake as I did. I think they got on 
very well.” 

“Indeed!” said I,— I expect with flashing eye,— 
“but the next time you go into the disciple business, 
I recommend that you take boys who really need to 
know something about farming, and not fine-as-fiddle 
young women that you might as well be ballet-dan- 
cing with as raking with, for all the hankering after 
knowledge they have.” 

“Oh ! ” said Jone, and that was all he did say, which 
62 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


was very wise in him, for, considering my state of feel- 
ings, his case was like a fish-hook in your finger— the 
more you pull and worry at it, the harder it is to get 
out. 

That evening, when I was quite cooled down, and 
we was talking to Mr. Poplington about the hay-mak- 
ing, and the free-and-easy way in which everybody 
came together, he was a good deal surprised that we 
should think that there was anything uncommon in 
that, coming from a country where everybody was 
free and equal. Jone was smoking his pipe, and when 
it draws well and he’s had a good dinner and I haven’t 
anything particular to say, he often likes to talk slow 
and preach little sermons. 

“Yes, sir,” said he, after considering the matter a 
little while. “According to the Constitution of the 
United States we are all free and equal, but there’s a 
good many things the Constitution doesn’t touch on, 
and one of them is the sorting out and sizing up of the 
population. Now, you people over here are like the 
metal types that the printers use. You’ve all got 
your letters on one end of you, and you know just 
where you belong, and if you happen to be knocked 
into ‘pi’ and mixed all up in a pile, it is easy enough 
to pick you out and put you all in your proper cases. 
But it’s different with us. According to the Constitu- 
tion, we’re like a lot of carpet-tacks, one just the same 
as another, though in fact we’re not alike, and it 
would not be easy if we got mixed up, say in a hay- 
field, to get ourselves all sorted out again according 
to the breadth of our heads and the sharpness of our 
points, so we don’t like to do too much mixing, don’t 
you see?” To which Mr. Poplington said he didn’t 
63 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


see, and then I explained to him that what Jone meant 
was that, though in our country we was all equally 
free, it didn’t do for us to be as freely equal as the 
people are sometimes over here, to which Mr. Pop- 
lington said, “ Really ! ” but he didn’t seem to be 
standing in the glaring sunlight of convincement. 
But the shade is often pleasant to be in, and he wound 
up by saying, as he bid us good night, that he thought 
it would be a great deal better for us, if we had classes 
at all, to have them marked out plain, and stamped 
so that there could be no mistake ; to which I said 
that if we did that, the most of the mistakes would 
come in the sorting, which, according to my reading 
of books and newspapers, had happened to most coun- 
tries that keep up aristocracies. 

I don’t know that he heard all that I said, for he 
was going up-stairs with his candle at the time, but 
when Jone and me got up-stairs in our own room, I 
said to him, and he always hears everything I say, 
that in some ways the girls that we have for servants 
at home have some advantages over those we find 
here, to which Jone said, “Yes,” and seemed to be 
sleepy. 


64 


LETTER NUMBER NINE 

Chedcombe, Somersetshire. 
There was still another day of hay- making, but we 
couldn’t wait for that, because our cycles had come 
from London, and we was all anxious to be off, and 
you would have laughed, madam, if you could have 
seen us start. Mr. Poplington went off well enough, 
but Jone’s bicycle seemed a little gay and hard to 
manage, and he frisked about a good deal at starting. 
But Jone had bought a bicycle long ago, when the 
things first came out, and on days when the roads was 
good he used to go to the post-office on it, and he said 
that if a man had ever ridden on top of a wheel about 
six feet high he ought to be able to balance himself 
on the pair of small wheels which they use nowadays. 
So, after getting his long legs into working order, he 
went very well, though with a snaky movement at 
first, and then I started. 

Each one of us had a little hand-bag hung on our 
machine, and Mr. Poplington said we needn’t take 
anything to eat, for there was inns to be found every- 
where in England. Hannah started me off nicely by 
pushing my tricycle until I got it going, and Miss 
Pondar waved her handkerchief from the cottage 
door. When Hannah left me I went along rather 
65 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


slow at first, but when I got used to the proper mo- 
tion I began to do better, and was very sure it 
wouldn’t take me long to catch up with Jone, who 
was still worm-fencing his way along the road. When 
I got entirely away from the houses, and began to 
smell the hedges and grassy banks so close to my nose, 
and feel myself gliding along over the smooth, white 
road, my spirits began to soar like a bird, and I 
almost felt like singing. 

The few people I met didn’t seem to think it was 
anything wonderful for a woman to ride on a tricycle, 
and I soon began to feel as proper as if I was walking 
on a sidewalk. Once I came very near tangling my- 
self up with the legs of a horse who was pulling a 
cart. I forgot that it was the proper thing in this 
country to turn to the left, and not to the right, but I 
gave a quick twist to my helm and just missed the 
cart-wheel, but it was a close scratch. This turning 
to the right, instead of to the left, was a mistake Jone 
made two or three times when he began to drive me 
in England, but he got over it, and since my grazing 
the cart it’s not likely I shall forget it. As I breathed 
a sigh of relief after escaping this danger I took in a 
breathful of the scent of wild roses that nearly cov- 
ered a bit of hedge, and my spirits rose again. 

I had asked Jone and Mr. Poplington to go ahead, 
because I knew I could do a great deal better if I 
worked along by myself for a while, without being 
told what I ought to do and what I oughtn’t to do. 
There is nothing that bothers me so much as to have 
people try to teach me things when I am puzzling 
them out for myself. But now I found that, although 
they could not be far ahead, I couldn’t see them, on 

66 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


account of the twists in the road and the high hedges, 
and so I put on steam and went along at a fine rate, 
sniffing the breeze like a charger of the battle-field. 
Before very long I came to a place where the road 
forked, but the road to the left seemed like a lane 
leading to somebody’s house, so I kept on in what 
was plainly the main road, which made a little turn 
where it forked. Looking out ahead of me to see if 
I could catch sight of the two men, I could not see a 
sign of them, but I did see that I was on the top of a 
long hill that seemed to lead on and down and on and 
down, with no end to it. 

I had hardly started down this hill when my tri- 
cycle became frisky and showed signs of wanting to 
run, and I got a little nervous, for I didn’t fancy go- 
ing fast down a slope like that. I put on the brake, 
but I don’t believe I managed it right, for I seemed 
to go faster and faster, and then, as the machine 
didn’t need any working, I took my feet off the pedals, 
with an idea, I think, though I can’t now remember, 
that I would get off and walk down the hill. In an 
instant that thing took the bit in its teeth, and away 
it went wildly, tearing downhill. I never was so 
much frightened in all my life. I tried to get my 
feet back on the pedals, but I couldn’t do it, and all I 
could do was to keep that flying tricycle in the middle 
of the road. As far as I could see ahead, there was 
not anything in the way of a wagon or a carriage that 
I could run into, but there was such a stretch of slope 
that it made me fairly dizzy. Just as I was having a 
little bit of comfort from thinking there was nothing in 
the way, a black woolly dog jumped out into the road 
some distance ahead of me, and stood there barking. 

67 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


My heart fell like a bucket into a well with the rope 
broken. If I steered the least bit to the right or the left, 
I believe I would have bounded over the hedge like 
a glass bottle from a railroad train, and come down 
on the other side in shivers and splinters. If I didn’t 
turn I was making a bee-line for the dog. But I had 
no time to think what to do, and in an instant that 
black woolly dog faded away like a reminiscence 
among the buzzing wheels of my tricycle. I felt a 
little bump, but was ignorant of further particulars. 

I was now going at what seemed like a speed of 
ninety or a hundred miles an hour, with the wind 
rushing in between my teeth like water over a mill- 
dam, and I felt sure that if I kept on going down that 
hill I should soon be whirling through space like a 
comet. The only way I could think of to save myself 
was to turn into some level place where the thing 
would stop, but not a cross-road did I pass. But pres- 
ently I saw a little house standing back from the road, 
which seemed to hump itself a little at that place so 
as to be nearly level, and over the edge of the hump 
it dipped so suddenly that I could not see the rest of 
the road at all. 

“Now,” thought I to myself, “if the gate of that 
house is open I’ll turn into it, and, no matter what I 
run into, it would be better than going over the edge 
of that rise beyond, and down the awful hill that must 
be on the other side of it.” As I swooped down to 
the little house and reached the level ground, I felt I 
was going a little slower, but not much. However, I 
steered my tricycle round at just the right instant, 
and through the front gate I went like a flash. 

I was going so fast, and my mind was so wound up 
68 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


on account of the necessity of steering straight, that 
I could not pay much attention to things I passed. 
But the scene that showed itself in front of me as I went 
through that little garden gate I could not help seeing 
and remembering. From the gate to the door of the 
house was a path paved with flagstones. The door was 
open, and there must have been a low step before it. 
Back of the door was a hall which ran through the 
house, and this was paved with flagstones. The back 
door of the hall was open, and outside of it was a sort 
of arbor with vines, and on one side of this arbor was 
a bench, with a young man and a young woman sit- 
ting on it, holding each other by the hand, and look- 
ing into each other’s eyes. The arbor opened out on 
to a piece of green grass, with flowers of mixed colors 
on the edges of it, and at the back of this bit of lawn 
was a lot of clothes hung out on clothes-lines. Of 
course, I could not have seen all those things at once, 
but they came upon me like a single picture, for in one 
tick of a watch I went over that flagstone path, and 
into that front door, and through that house, and out 
of that back door, and past that young man and that 
young woman, and, head and heels both foremost at 
once, dashed slam-bang into the midst of all that linen 
hanging out on the lines. 

I heard the minglement of a groan and a scream, 
and in an instant I was enveloped in a white, wet cloud 
of sheets, pillow-cases, table-cloths, and underwear. 
Some of the things stuck so close to me, and others I 
grabbed with such a wild clutch, that nearly all the 
week’s wash, lines and all, came down on me, wrap- 
ping me up like an apple in a dumpling— but I 
stopped. There was not anything in this world that 
69 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


would have been better for me to run into than those 
lines full of wet clothes. 

Where the tricycle went to I didn’t know, but I 
was lying on the grass kicking, and trying to get up and 
to get my head free, so that I could see and breathe. 
At last I did get on my feet, and throwing out my 
arms so as to shake off the sheets and pillow-cases that 
was clinging all over me, I shook some of the things 
partly off my face, and with one eye I saw that 
couple on the bench— but only for a second. With a 
yell of horror, and with a face whiter than the linen 
I was wrapped in, that young man bounced from the 
bench, dashed past the house, made one clean jump 
over the hedge into the road, and disappeared. As 
for the young woman, she just flopped over and went 
down in a faint on the floor. 

As soon as I could do it, I got myself free from the 
clothes-line and staggered out on the grass. I was 
trembling so much I could scarcely walk, but when I 
saw that young woman looking as if she was dead on 
the ground I felt I must do something, and seeing a 
pail of water standing near by, I held it over her face, 
and poured it down on her a little at a time, and it 
wasn’t long before she began to squirm, and then she 
opened her eyes and her mouth just at the same time, 
so that she must have swallowed about as much water 
as she would have taken at a meal. This brought her 
to, and she began to cough and splutter and look 
around wildly, and then I took her by the arm and 
helped her up on the bench. 

“Don’t you want a little something to drink?” I 
said. “Tell me where I can get you something.” 

She didn’t answer, but began looking from one side 
70 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


to the other. “Is he swallowed ?” said she, in a 
whisper, with her eyes starting out of her head. 

“Swallowed ? 77 said I. “Who ? 77 

“ Davy , 77 said she. 

“Oh, your young man , 77 said I. “He is all right, 
unless he hurt himself jumping over the hedge. I saw 
him run away just as fast as he could . 77 

“And the spirit ? 77 said she. 

I looked hard at her. 

“What has happened to you ? 77 said I. “ How did 
you come to faint ? 77 

She was getting quieter, but she still looked wildly 
out of her eyes, and kept her back turned toward the 
bit of grass, as if she was afraid to look in that direc- 
tion. 

“What happened to you ? 77 said I again, for I 
wanted to know what she thought about my sudden 
appearance. It took some little time for her to get 
ready to answer, and then she said : 

“Was you frightened, lady? Did you have to come 
in here ? I 7 m sorry you found me swooned. I don’t 
know how long I was swooned. Davy and me was 
sitting here talking about having the banns called. 
And it was a sorry talk, lady, for the vicar he’s told 
me four times I should not marry Davy, because he 
says he is a Radical, but for all that Davy and me 
wants the banns called all the same, but not knowing 
how we was to have it done, for the vicar he’s so set 
against Davy, and Davy he had just got done saying 
to me that he was going to marry me, vicar or no 
vicar, banns or no banns, come what might, when that 
very minute, with an awful hiss, something flashed in 
front of us, dazzling my eyes so that I shut them and 

71 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


screamed, and then, when I opened them again, there, 
in the yard back of us, was a great white spirit twice 
as high as the cow-stable, with one eye in the middle 
of its forehead turning around like a firework. I 
don’t remember anything after that, and I don’t know 
how long I was lying here when you came and found 
me, lady, but I know what it means. There is a curse 
on our marriage, and Davy and me will never be man 
and wife.” And then she fell to groaning and 
moaning. 

I felt like laughing when I thought how much like 
a church ghost I must have looked, standing there in 
solid white, with my arms stretched out. But the poor 
girl was in such a dreadful state of mind that I sat 
down beside her and began to comfort her by telling 
her just what had happened, and that she ought to be 
very glad that I had found a place to turn into, and 
had not gone on down the hill and dashed myself 
into little pieces at the bottom. But it wasn’t easy 
to cheer her up. 

“Oh, Davy’s gone ! ” said she. “He’ll never come 
back for fear of the curse. He’ll be off with his uncle 
to sea. I’ll never lay eyes on Davy again.” 

Just at that moment I heard somebody calling my 
name, and looking through the house, I saw Jone at 
the front door, and two men behind him. As I ran 
through the hall I saw that the two men with Jone 
was Mr. Poplington and a young fellow with a pale 
face and trembling legs. 

“Is this Davy?” said I. 

“Yes,” said he. 

“Then go back to your young woman and comfort 
her,” I said, which he did. And when he had gone— not 
72 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


madly rushing into his loved one’s arms, but shuffling 
along in a timid way, as if he was afraid the ghost 
hadn’t gone yet— I asked Jone how he happened to 
think I was here, and he told me that he and Mr. 
Poplington had taken the road to the left when they 
reached the fork, because that was the proper one, 
but they had not gone far before he thought I might 
not know which way to turn, so they came back to 
the fork to wait for me. But I had been closer behind 
them than they thought, and I must have come to the 
fork before they turned back, so, after waiting awhile, 
and going back along the road without seeing me, they 
thought that I must have taken the right-hand road, 
and they came that way, going down the hill very 
carefully. After a while Jone found my hat in the 
road, which up to that moment I had not missed, and 
then he began to be frightened, and they went on faster. 

They passed the little house, and as they was going 
down the hill they saw ahead of them a man running 
as if something had happened, so they let out their bi- 
cycles and soon caught up to him. This was Davy, 
and when they stopped him and asked if anything 
was the matter, he told them that a dreadful thing had 
come to pass. He had been working in the garden of 
a house about half a mile back, when suddenly there 
came an awful crash, and a white animal sprang out 
of the house with a bit of a cotton-mill fastened to its 
tail, and then, with a great peal of thunder, it van- 
ished, and a white ghost rose up out of the ground 
with its arms stretching out longer and longer, reach- 
ing to clutch him by the hair. He was not afraid of 
anything living, but he couldn’t abide spirits, so he 
laid down his spade and left the garden, thinking he 
73 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


would go and see the sexton, and have him come and 
lay the ghost. 

Then Jone went on to say that, of course, he could 
not make head or tail out of such a story as that, but 
when he heard that an awful row had been kicked up 
in a garden, he immediately thought that as like as 
not I was in it, and so he and Mr. Poplington ran 
back, leaving their bicycles against the hedge, and 
bringing the young man with them. 

Then I told my story, and Mr. Poplington said it 
was a mercy I was not killed, and Jone didn’t say 
much, but I could see that his teeth was grinding. 

We all went into the back yard, and there, on the 
other side of the clothes, which was scattered all 
over the ground, we found my tricycle, jammed into 
a lot of gooseberry-bushes, and when it was dragged 
out we found it was not hurt a bit. Davy and his 
young woman was standing in the arbor looking very 
sheepish, especially Davy, for she had told him what 
it was that had scared him. As we was going through 
the house, Jone taking my tricycle, I stopped to say 
good-by to the girl. 

“Now that you see there has been no curse and no 
ghost,” said I, “I hope that you will soon have your 
banns called, and that you and your young man will 
be married all right.” 

“ Thank you very much, ma’am,” said she, “but I’m 
awful fearful about it. Davy may say what he pleases, 
but my mother never will let me marry him if the 
vicar’s agen it, — and Davy wouldn’t have been here 
to-day if she hadn’t gone to town,— and the vicar’s a 
hard man and a strong Tory, and he’ll always be agen 
it, I fear.” 


74 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


When I went out into the front yard I found Mr. 
Poplington and Jone sitting on a little stone bench, 
for they was tired, and I told them about that young 
woman and Davy. 

“ Humph ! ” said Mr. Poplington, “I know the vicar 
of the parish. He is the Rev. Osmun Green. He’s 
a good Conservative, and is perfectly right in trying 
to keep that poor girl from marrying a wretched 
Radical.” 

I looked straight at him and said : 

“Do you mean, sir, to put politics before matri- 
monial happiness?” 

“No, I don’t,” said he, “but a girl can’t expect 
matrimonial happiness with a Radical.” 

I saw that Jone was about to say something here, 
but I got in ahead of him. 

“I will tell you what it is, sir,” said I : “if you think 
it is wrong to be a Radical, the best thing you can do 
is to write to your friend, that vicar, and advise him 
to get those two young people married as soon as pos- 
sible, for it is easy to see that she is going to rule the 
roost, and if anybody can get his Radicalistics out of 
him, she will be the one to do it.” 

Mr. Poplington laughed, and said that as the man 
looked as if he was a fit subject to be henpecked, it 
might be a good way of getting another Tory vote. 

“But,” said he, “I should think it would go against 
your conscience, being naturally opposed to the Con- 
servatives, to help even by one vote.” 

“Oh, my conscience is all right,” said I. “When 
politics runs against the matrimonial altar I stand up 
for the altar.” 

“Well,” said he, “I’ll think of it.” And we started 
75 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 

off, walking down the hill, Jone holding on to my 
tricycle. 

When we got to level ground, with about two miles 
to go before we would stop for luncheon, Jone took a 
piece of thin rope out of his pocket— he always carries 
some sort of cord in case of accidents— and he tied it 
to the back part of my machine. 

“Now,” said he, “I’m going to keep hold of the 
other end of this, and perhaps your tricycle won’t 
run away with you.” 

I didn’t much like going along this way, as if I was 
a cow being taken to market, but I could see that 
Jone had been so troubled and frightened about me 
that I didn’t make any objection, and, in fact, after I 
got started it was a comfort to think there was a tie 
between Jone and me that was stronger, when hilly 
roads came into the question, than even the matri- 
monial tie. 


76 


LETTER NUMBER TEN 


Chedcombe, Somersetshire. 
The place we stopped at on the first night of onr cycle 
trip is named Porlock, and after the walking and the 
pushing, and the strain on my mind when going down 
even the smallest hill for fear Jone’s rope would give 
way, I was glad to get there. 

The road into Porlock goes down a hill, the steepest 
I have seen yet, and we all walked down, holding onr 
machines as if* they had been fiery coursers. This hill 
road twists and winds so you can only see part of it 
at a time, and when we was about half-way down we 
heard a horn blowing behind us, and looking around, 
there came the mail-coach at full speed, with four 
horses, with a lot of people on top. As this raging 
coach passed by it nearly took my breath away, and 
as soon as I could speak I said to Jone : “ Don’t you 
ever say anything in America about having the roads 
made narrower so that it won’t cost so much to keep 
them in order, for, in my opinion, it’s often the narrow 
road that leadeth to destruction.” 

When we got into the town, and my mind really 
began to grapple with old Porlock, I felt as if I was 
sliding backward down the slope of the centuries, and 
liked it. As we went along Mr. Poplington told us 

77 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


about everything, and said that this queer little town 
was a fishing village and seaport in the days of the 
Saxons, and that King Harold was once obliged to 
stop there for a while, and that he passed his time 
making war on the neighbors. 

Mr. Poplington took us to a tavern called the “Ship 
Inn / 7 and I simply went wild over it. It is two hun- 
dred years old and two stories high, and everything I 
ever read about the hostelries of the past I saw there. 
The queer little door led into a queer little passage 
paved with stone. A pair of little stairs led out of 
this into another little room, higher up, and on the 
other side of the passage was a long, mysterious hall- 
way. We had our dinner in a tiny parlor, which re- 
minded me of a chapter in one of those old books 
where they use / instead of s, and where the first word 
of the next page is at the bottom of the one you are 
reading. 

There was a fireplace in the room, with a window 
one side of it, through which you could look into the 
street. It was not cold, but it had begun to rain hard, 
and so I made the dampness an excuse for a fire. 

“This is antique, indeed / 7 I said, when we were at 
the table. 

“You are right there / 7 said Mr. Poplington, who 
was doing his best to carve a duck, and was a little 
cross about it. 

When I sat before the fire that evening, and Jone 
was asleep on a settee of the days of yore, and Mr. 
Poplington had gone to bed, being tired, my soul went 
back to the olden time, and looking out through the 
little window in the fireplace, I fancied I could see 
William the Conqueror and the King of the Danes 
78 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


sneaking along the little street under the eaves of the 
thatched roofs, until I was so worked up that I was 
on the point of shouting, “Fly, O Saxon ! ” when the 
door opened and the maid who waited on us at the 
table put her head in. I took this for a sign that 
the curfew-bell was going to ring, and so I woke up 
Jone and we went to bed. 

But all night long the heroes of the past flocked 
about me. I had been reading a lot of history, and I 
knew them all the minute my eyes fell upon them. 
Charlemagne and Canute sat on the end of the bed, 
while Alfred the Great climbed up one of the posts 
until he was stopped by Hannibal’s legs, who had 
them twisted about the post to keep himself steady. 
When I got up in the morning I went down-stairs 
into the little parlor, and there was the maid down 
on her knees cleaning the hearth. 

“What is your name!” I said to her. 

“Jane, please,” said she. 

“Jane what?” said I. 

“Jane Puddle, please,” said she. 

I took a carving-knife from off the table, and stand- 
ing over her, I brought it down gently on top of her 
head. “Bise, Sir Jane Puddle,” said I, to which the 
maid gave a smothered gasp, and— would you believe 
it, madam?— she crept out of the room on her hands 
and knees. The cook waited on us at breakfast, and 
I truly believe that the landlord and his wife breathed 
a sigh of relief when we left the Ship Inn, for their 
sordid souls had never heard of knighthood, but knew 
all about assassination. 

That morning we left Porlock by a hill which, com- 
pared with the one we came into it by, was like the 
79 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


biggest Pyramid of Egypt by the side of a haycock. 
I don’t suppose in the whole civilized world there is 
a worse hill with a road on it than the one we went 
up by. I was glad we had to go up it instead of down 
it, though it was very hard to walk, pushing the tri- 
cycle, even when helped. I believe it would have 
taken away my breath and turned me dizzy even to 
take one step face forward down such a hill, and gaze 
into the dreadful depths below me, and yet they drive 
coaches and fours down that hill. At the top of the 
hill is this notice : 


TO CYCLERS 

THIS HILL IS DANGEROUS 

If I had thought of it I should have looked for the 
cyclers’ graves at the bottom of it. 

The reason I thought about this was that I had 
been reading about one of the mountains in Switzer- 
land, which is one of the highest and most dangerous, 
and with the poorest view, where so many Alpine 
climbers have been killed that there is a little grave- 
yard nearly full of their graves at the foot of the 
mountain. How they could walk through that grave- 
yard and read the inscriptions on the tombstones and 
then go and climb that mountain is more than I can 
imagine. 

In walking up this hill, and thinking that it might 
have been in front of me when my tricycle ran away, 
I could not keep my mind away from the little grave- 
yard at the foot of the Swiss mountain. 


80 


LETTER NUMBER ELEVEN 


Chedcombe, Somersetshire. 
On the third day of our cycle trip we journeyed along 
a lofty road, with the wild moor on one side and the 
tossing sea on the other, and at night reached Lynton. 
It is a little town on a jutting crag, and far down be- 
low it on the edge of the sea was another town named 
Lynmouth, and there is a car with a wire rope to it, 
like an elevator, which they call the lift, which 
takes people up and down from one town to another. 

Here we stopped at a house very different from the 
Ship Inn, for it looked as if it had been built the day 
before yesterday. Everything was new and shiny, 
and we had our supper at a long table with about 
twenty other people, just like a boarding-house. 
Some of their ways reminded me of the backwoods, 
and I suppose there is nothing more modern than 
backwoodsism, which naturally hasn’t the least alloy 
of the past. When the people got through with their 
cups of coffee or tea, mostly the last, two women went 
around the table, one with a big bowl for us to lean 
back and empty our slops into, and the other with 
the tea or coffee to fill up the cups. A gentleman 
with a baldish head, who was sitting opposite us, 
began to be sociable as soon as he heard us speak to 
81 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


the waiters, and asked questions about America. 
After be got through with about a dozen of them he 
said : 

“Is it true, as I have heard, that what you call na- 
tive-born Americans deteriorate in the third gener- 
ation ?’ 7 

I had been answering most of the questions, but 
now Jone spoke up quick. “That depends,” says he, 
“on their original blood. When Americans are de- 
scended from Englishmen they steadily improve, gen- 
eration after generation.” 

The baldish man smiled at this, and said there was 
nothing like having good blood for a foundation. 
But Mr. Poplington laughed, and said to me that 
Jone had served him right. 

The country about Lynton is wonderfully beautiful, 
with rocks and valleys, and velvet lawns running into 
the sea, and woods and ancestral mansions, and we 
spent the day seeing all this, and also going down to 
Lynmouth, where the little ships lie high and dry on 
the sand when the tide goes out, and the carts drive 
up to them and put goods on board, and when the tide 
rises the ships sail away, which is very convenient. 

I wanted to keep on along the coast, but the others 
didn’t, and the next morning we started back to Ched- 
combe by a roundabout way, so that we might see 
Exmoor and the country where Lorna Doone and 
John Bidd cut up their didoes. I must say I liked 
the story a good deal better before I saw the country 
where the things happened. The mind of man is 
capable of soarings which nature weakens at when 
she sees what she is called upon to do. If you want a 
82 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


real, first-class, tooth- on-edge Doone valley, the place 
to look for it is in the book. We went rolling along 
on the smooth, hard roads, which are just as good here 
as if they was in London, and all around us was 
stretched out the wild and desolate moors, with the 
wind screaming and whistling over the heather, nearly 
tearing the clothes off our backs, while the rain beat 
down on us with a steady pelting, and the ragged 
sheep stopped to look at us, as if we was three witches 
and they was Macbeths. 

The very thought that I was out in a wild storm on 
a desolate moor filled my soul with a sort of triumph, 
and I worked my tricycle as if I was spurring my 
steed to battle. The only thing that troubled me 
was the thought that if the water that poured off my 
mackintosh that day could have run into our cistern 
at home, it would have been a glorious good thing. 
Jone did not like the fierce blast and the inspiriting 
rain, but I knew he’d stand it as long as Mr. Popling- 
ton did, and so I was content, although, if we had 
been overtaken by a covered wagon, I should have 
trembled for the result. 

That night we stopped in the little village of 
Simonsbath at Somebody’s Arms. After dinner Mr. 
Poplington, who knew some people in the place, went 
out, but Jone and me went to bed as quick as we 
could, for we was tired. The next morning we was 
wakened by a tremendous pounding at the door. I 
didn’t know what to make of it, for it was too early 
and too loud for hot water, but we heard Mr. Pop- 
lington calling to us, and Jone jumped up to see what 
he wanted. 


83 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


“Get up/’ said he, “if you want to see a sight that 
you never saw before. We’ll start off immediately, 
and breakfast at Exford.” 

The hope of seeing a sight was enough to make me 
bounce at any time, and I never dressed or packed a 
bag quicker than I did that morning, and Jone wasn’t 
far behind me. 

When we got down-stairs we found our cycles wait- 
ing ready at the door, together with the stable-man 
and the stable-boy and the boy’s helper and the cook 
and the chambermaid and the waiters and the other 
servants, waiting for their tips. Mr. Poplington 
seemed in a fine humor, and he told us he had heard 
the night before that there was to be a stag hunt that 
day, the first of the season. In fact, it was not one of 
the regular meets, but what they called a by-meet, 
and not known to everybody. 

“We will go on to Exford,” said he, straddling his 
bicycle, “for, though the meet isn’t to be there, there’s 
where they keep the hounds and horses, and if we make 
good speed we shall get there before they start out.” 

The three of us travelled abreast, Mr. Poplington in 
the middle, and on the way he told us a good deal 
about stag hunts. What I remember best, having to 
go so fast and having to mind my steering, was that 
after the hunting season began they hunted stags until 
a certain day,— I forget what it was, — and then they let 
them alone and began to hunt the does ; and that after 
that particular day of the month, when the stags heard 
the hounds coming they paid no attention to them, 
knowing very well it was the does’ turn to be chased, 
and that they would not be bothered, and so they let 
the female members of their families take care of 


84 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


themselves— which shows that ungentlemanliness ex- 
tends itself even into nature. 

When we got to Exford, we left our cycles at the 
inn, and followed Mr. Poplington to the hunting- 
stables, which are near by. I had not gone a dozen 
steps from the door before I heard a great barking, 
and the next minute there came around the corner a 
pack of hounds. They crossed the bridge over the 
little river, and then they stopped. We went up to 
them, and while Mr. Poplington talked to the men 
the whole of that pack of hounds gathered about ns, 
as gentle as lambs. They were good big dogs, white 
and brown. The head huntsman, who had them in 
charge, told me there was thirty couple of them, and 
I thought that sixty dogs was pretty heavy odds 
against one deer. Then they moved off as orderly as 
if they had been children in a kindergarten, and we 
went to the stables and saw the horses. And then the 
master of the hounds and a good many other gentlemen 
in red coats, in all sorts of traps, rode up, and their 
hunters were saddled, and the dogs barked, and the 
men cracked their whips to keep them together, and 
there was a bustle and liveliness to a degree I can’t 
write about, and Jone and I never thought about go- 
ing in to breakfast until all those horses, some led and 
some ridden, and the men and the hounds, and even 
the dust from their feet, had disappeared. 

I wanted to go see the hunt start off, but Mr. Pop- 
lington said it was two or three miles distant, and out 
of onr way, and that we ’d better move on as soon 
as possible so as to reach Chedcombe that night. But 
he was glad, he said, that we had had a chance to see 
the hounds and the horses. 

85 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


As for himself, I could see he was a little down in 
the mouth, for he said he was very fond of hunting, 
and that if he had known of this meet he would have 
been there with a horse and his hunting- clothes. I 
think he hoped somebody would lend him a horse, 
but nobody did, and not being able to hunt himself, 
he disliked seeing other people doing what he could 
not. Of course, Jone and me could not go to the hunt 
by ourselves, so after we’d had our tea and toast and 
bacon we started off. I will say here that when I was 
at the Ship Inn I had tea for my breakfast, for I 
couldn’t bring my mind to order coffee— a drink the 
Saxons must never have heard of— in such a place, 
and since that we have been drinking it, because Jone 
said there was no use fighting against established 
drinks, and that, anyway, he thought good tea was 
better than bad coffee. 


86 


LETTER NUMBER TWELVE 


Chedcombe, Somersetshire. 
As I said in my last letter, we started out for Ched- 
combe, not abreast, as we bad been before, but strung 
along the road, and me and Mr. Poplington pretty 
doleful, being disappointed and not wanting to talk. 
But as for Jone, he seemed livelier than ever, and 
whistled a lot of tunes he didn’t know. I think it 
always makes him lively to get rid of seeing sights. 
The sun was shining brightly, and there was no reason 
to expect rain for two or three hours anyway, and the 
country we passed through was so fine, with hardly 
any houses, and with great hills and woods, and some- 
times valleys far below the road, with streams rushing 
and bubbling, that after a while I began to feel better, 
and I pricked up my tricycle, and, of course, being 
followed by Jone, we left Mr. Poplington, whose mel- 
ancholy seemed to have gotten into his legs, a good 
way behind. 

We must have travelled two or three hours when all 
of a sudden I heard a noise afar, and I drew up and 
listened. The noise was the barking of dogs, and it 
seemed to come from a piece of woods on the other 
side of the field which lay to the right of the road. 
The next instant something shot out from under the 
87 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


trees and began going over the field in ten-foot hops. 
I sat staring without understanding, but when I saw 
a lot of brown and white spots bounce out of the 
wood, and saw, a long way back in the open field, two 
red-coated men on horseback, the truth flashed upon 
me that this was the hunt. The creature in front 
was the stag, who had chosen to come this way, and 
the dogs and the horses was after him, and I was here 
to see it all. 

Almost before I got this all straight in my mind, 
the deer was nearly opposite me on the other side 
of the field, going the same way that we were. In 
a second I clapped spurs into my tricycle and was 
off. In front of me was a long stretch of down grade, 
and over this I went as fast as I could work my 
pedals. Ho brakes or holding back for me. My blood 
was up, for I was actually in a deer hunt, and, to my 
amazement and wild delight, I found I was keeping 
up with the deer. I was going faster than the men 
on horseback. 

“Hi ! hi ! ?? I shouted, and down I went, with one 
eye on the deer and the other on the road, every 
atom of my body tingling with fiery excitement. 

When I began to go up the little slope ahead I heard 
Jone puffing behind me. 

“You will break your neck,” he shouted, “if you 
go downhill that way ! ” And getting close up to me, 
he fastened his cord to my tricycle. 

But I paid no attention to him or his advice. 

“The stag ! the stag ! ” I cried. “As long as he keeps 
near the road we can follow him ! Hi ! ” And hav- 
ing got up to the top of the next hill, I made ready to 
go down as fast as I had gone before, for we had fallen 
88 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


back a little, and the stag was now getting ahead of 
ns. But it made me gnash my teeth to find that I could 
not go fast, for Jone held back with all his force (and 
both feet on the ground, I expect), and I could not 
get on at all. 

“Let go of me ! ” I cried. “We shall lose the stag. 
Stop holding back ! ” But it wasn’t any use. Jone’s 
heels must have been nearly rubbed off, but he held 
back like a good fellow, and I seemed to be moving 
along no faster than a worm. I could not stand this. 
My blood boiled and bubbled. The deer was get- 
ting away from me, and if it had been Porlock Hill 
in front of me, I would have dashed on, not caring 
whether the road was steep or level. 

A thought flashed across my mind, and I clapped 
my hand into my pocket and jerked out a pair of 
scissors. In an instant I was free. The world and 
the stag were before me, and I was flying along with a 
tornado -like swiftness that soon brought me abreast 
of the deer. This perfectly splendid, bounding crea- 
ture was not far away from me on the other side of 
the hedge, and as the field was higher than the road, 
I could see him perfectly. His legs worked so regular 
and springy, except when he came to a cross-hedge, 
which he went over with a single clip, and came down 
like india-rubber on the other side, that one might 
have thought he was measuring the grass, and keep- 
ing an account of his jumps in his head. 

For one instant I looked around for the hounds, 
and I saw there was not more than half a dozen fol- 
lowing him, and I could only see the two hunters I 
had seen before, and these was still a good way back. 
As for Jone, I couldn’t hear him at all, and he must 
89 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


have been left far behind. There was still the woods 
on the other side, and the deer seemed to run to keep 
away from that, and to cross the road, and he came 
nearer and nearer until I fancied he kept an eye on 
me as if he was wondering if I was of any consequence, 
and if I could hinder him from crossing the road and 
getting away into the valley below, where there was 
a regular wilderness of woods and underbrush. 

“If he does that,” I thought, “he will be gone in a 
minute, and I shall lose him, and the hunt will be 
over.” And for fear he would make for the hedge and 
jump over it, not minding me, I jerked out my hand- 
kerchief and shook it at him. You can’t imagine how 
this frightened him. He turned sharp to the right, 
dashed up the hill, cleared a hedge, and was gone. 
I gave a gasp and a scream as I saw him disappear. 
I believe I cried, but I didn’t stop, and glad I was 
that I didn’t, for in less than a minute I had come to 
a cross-lane which led in the very direction the deer 
had taken. I turned into this lane and went on as 
fast as I could, and I soon found that it led through a 
thick wood. Down in the hollow, which I could not 
see into, I heard a barking and shouting, and I kept 
on just as fast as I could make that tricycle go. 
Where the lane led to, or what I should ever come 
to, I didn’t think about. I was hunting a stag, and 
all I cared for was to feel my tricycle bounding be- 
neath me. 

I may have gone a half a mile or two miles — I have 
not an idea how far it was — when suddenly I came to 
a place where there was green grass and rocks in an 
opening in the woods, and what a sight I saw ! There 
was that beautiful, grand red deer half down on his 
90 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


knees and perfectly quiet, and there was one of the men 
in red coats coming toward him with a great knife in 
his hand, and a little farther back was three or four 
dogs, with another man, still on horseback, whipping 
them to keep them back, though they seemed willing 
enough to lie there with their tongues out, panting. 
As the man with the knife came up to the deer, the 
poor creature raised its eyes to him, and didn’t seem 
to mind whether he came or not. It was trembling 
all over and fairly tired to death. When the man got 
near enough he took hold of one of the deer’s horns 
and lifted up the hand with the knife in it. But he 
didn’t bring it down on that deer’s throat, I can tell 
you, madam, for I was there and had him by the 
arm. 

He turned on me as if he had been struck by light- 
ning. 

“What do you mean?” he shouted. “Let go my 
arm ! ” 

“Don’t you touch that deer,” said I— my voice was 
so husky I could hardly speak. “Don’t you see it’s 
surrendered? Can you have the heart to cut that 
beautiful throat when he is pleading for mercy?” 

The man’s eyes looked as if they would burst out of 
his head. He gave me a pull and a push, as if he 
would stick the knife into me, and he actually swore 
at me, but I didn’t mind that. 

“You have got that poor creature now,” said I, 
“and that’s enough. Keep it and tame it, and bring 
it up with your children.” I didn’t have time to say 
anything more, and he didn’t have time to answer, for 
two of the dogs who had got a little of their wind 
back sprang up and made a jump at the stag, and he, 
91 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


having got a little of his wind back, jerked his horn 
out of the hand of the man, and giving a sort of 
side-spring backward among the bushes and rocks, 
away he went, the dogs after him. 

The man with the knife rushed out into the lane, 
and so did I, and so did the man on horseback, almost 
on top of me. On the other side of the lane was a 
little gorge with rocks and trees and water at the 
bottom of it, and I was just in time to see the stag 
spring over the lane and drop out of sight among the 
rocks and the moss and the vines. 

The man stood and swore at me, regardless of my 
sex, so violent was his rage. 

“If you was a man I’d break your head,” he yelled. 

“I’m glad I’m not,” said I, “for I wouldn’t want my 
head broken. But what troubles me is that I’m 
afraid that deer has broken his legs or hurt himself 
some way, for I never saw anything drop on rocks 
in such a reckless manner— and the poor thing so 
tired.” 

The man swore again, and said something about 
wishing somebody else’s legs had been broken, and then 
he shouted to the man on horseback to call off the dogs 
—which was of no use, for he was doing it already. 
Then he turned on me again. 

“You are an American!” he shouted. “I might 
have known that. No Englishwoman would ever have 
done such a beastly thing as that.” 

“You’re mistaken there,” I said. “There isn’t a 
true Englishwoman that lives who would not have 
done the same thing. Your mother—” 

“Confound my mother ! ” yelled the man. 

“All right,” said I. “That’s all in your family, and 
none of my business.” 


92 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


Then he went off raging to where he had left his 
horse by a gate-post. 

The other man, who was a good deal younger and 
more friendly, came up to me and said he wouldn’t 
like to be in my boots, for I had spoiled a pretty 
piece of sport ; and then he went on and told me that 
it had been a bad hunt, for instead of starting only 
one stag, three or four of them had been started, and 
they had had a bad time, for the hounds and the 
hunters had been mixed up in a nasty way. And at 
last, when the master of the hounds and most every 
one else had gone off over Dunkery Hill, and he 
didn’t know whether they was after two stags or one, 
he and his mate, who was both whippers-in, had 
gone to turn part of the pack that had broken away, 
and had found that these dogs was after another stag, 
and so, before they knew it, they was in a hunt of their 
own, and they would have killed that stag if it had 
not been for me ; and he said it was hard on his mate, 
for he knew he had it in mind that he was going to 
kill the only stag of the day. 

He went on to say that, as for himself, he wasn’t so 
sorry, for this was Sir Skiddery Henchball’s land, and 
when a stag was killed it belonged to the man whose 
land it died on. He told me that the master of the 
hunt gets the head and the antlers, and the huntsman 
some other part, which I forget, but the owner of the 
land, no matter whether he’s in the hunt or not, gets 
the body of the stag. “ There’s a cottage not a mile 
down this lane,” said he, “with its thatch torn off, and 
my sister and her children lived there, and Sir Skid- 
dery turned them out on account of the rent, and so 
I’m glad the old skinflint didn’t get the venison.” 
And then he went off, being called by the other man. 

93 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


I didn’t know what time it was, but it seemed as 
if it must be getting on into the afternoon, and feeling 
that my deer hunt was over, I thought I had better 
lose no time in hunting up Jone, so I followed on 
after the men and the dogs, who was going to the 
main road, but keeping a little back of them, though, 
for I didn’t know what the older one might do if he 
happened to turn and see me. 

I was sure that Jone had passed the little lane 
without seeing it, so I kept on the way we had been 
going, and got up all the speed I could, though I must 
say I was dreadfully tired, and even trembling a little, 
for while I had been stag-hunting I was so excited I 
didn’t know how much work I was doing. There 
was sign-posts enough to tell me the way to Ched- 
combe, and so I kept straight on, uphill and down- 
hill, until at last I saw a man ahead on a bicycle, 
which I soon knew to be Mr. Poplington. He was 
surprised enough at seeing me, and told me my hus- 
band had gone ahead. I didn’t explain anything, 
and it wasn’t until we got nearly to Chedcombe that 
we met Jone. He had been to Chedcombe, and was 
coming back. 

Jone is a good fellow, but he’s got a will of his own, 
and he said that this would be the end of my tricycle- 
riding, and that the next time we went out together 
on wheels he’d drive. I didn’t tell him anything 
about the stag hunt then, for he seemed to be in favor of 
doing all the talking himself. But after dinner, when 
we was all settled down quiet and comfortable, I told 
him and Mr. Poplington the story of the chase, and 
they both laughed, Mr. Poplington the most. 


94 


LETTER NUMBER THIRTEEN 


Chedcombe, Somersetshire. 

It is now about a week since my stag hunt, and Jone 
and I have kept pretty quiet, taking short walks, and 
doing a good deal of reading in our garden whenever 
the sun shines into the little arbor there, and Mr. 
Poplington spends most of his time fishing. He works 
very hard at this, partly for the sake of his conscience, 
I think, for his bicycle trip made him lose three or 
four days he had taken a license for. 

It was day before yesterday that rheumatism 
showed itself certain and plain in Jone. I had been 
thinking that perhaps I might have it first, but it 
wasn’t so, and it began in Jone, which, though I don’t 
want you to think me hard-hearted, madam, was per- 
haps better, for if it had not been for it, it might have 
been hard to get him out of this comfortable little 
cottage, where he’d be perfectly content to stay until 
it was time for us to sail for America. The beautiful 
greenness which spreads over the fields and hills, and 
not only the leaves of trees and vines, but down and 
around trunks and branches, is charming to look 
at, and never to be forgotten. But when this moist 
greenness spreads itself to one’s bones, especially 
when it creeps up to the parts that work together, 
then the soul of man longs for less picturesqueness 
95 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


and more easy-going joints. Jone says the English 
take their climate as they do their whiskey, and he 
calls it climate and water, with a very little of the 
first and a good deal of the other. 

Of course, we must now leave Chedcombe, and 
when we talked to Mr. Poplington about it, he said 
there was two places the English went to for their 
rheumatism. One was Bath, not far from here, and 
the other was Buxton, up in the north. As soon as I 
heard of Bath I was on pins and needles to go there, 
for in all the novel-reading Eve done — which has 
been getting better and better in quality since the 
days when I used to read dime novels on the canal- 
boat, up to now, when I like the best there is— I could 
not help knowing lots about Evelina and Beau 
Brummel, and the Pump Room, and the fine ladies 
and young bucks, and it would have joyed my soul to 
live and move where all these people had been, and 
where all these things had happened, even if ficti- 
tiously. 

But Mr. Poplington came down like a shower on 
my notions, and said that Bath was very warm, and 
was the place where everybody went for their rheu- 
matism in winter, but that Buxton was the place for 
the summer, because it was on high land and cool. 
This cast me down a good deal, for if we could have 
gone where I could have steeped my soul in roman- 
ticness, and at the same time Jone could have steeped 
himself in warm mineral water, there would not have 
been any time lost, and both of us would have been 
happier. But Mr. Poplington stuck to it that it 
would ruin anybody’s constitution to go to such a hot 
place in August, and so I had to give it up. 

96 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


So to-morrow we start for Buxton, which, from 
what I can make out, must be a sort of invalid picnic- 
ground. I always did hate diseases and ailments, 
even of the mildest, when they go in caravan. I like 
to take people’s sicknesses separate, because then I 
feel I might do something to help ; but when they are 
bunched I feel as if it was sort of mean for me to go 
about cheerful and singing when other people was all 
grunting. 

But we are not going straight to Buxton. As I 
have often said, Jone is a good fellow, and he told me 
last night if there was any bit of fancy scenery I’d like 
to stop at on the way to the unromantic refuge, he’d be 
glad to give me the chance, because he didn’t suppose 
it would matter much if he put off his hot soaks for a 
few days. It didn’t take me long to name a place I’d 
like to stop at,— for most of my reading lately has 
been in the guide-books, and I had crammed myself 
with the descriptions of places worth seeing that 
would take us at least two years to look at,— so I said 
I would like to go to the river Wye, which is said to 
be the most romantic stream in England— and when 
that is said, enough is said for me. So Jone agreed, 
and we are going to do the Wye on our way north. 

There is going to be an election here in a few days, 
and this morning Jone and me hobbled into the vil- 
lage— that is, he hobbled in body, and I did in mind 
to think of his going along like a creaky wheelbarrow. 

Everybody was agog about the election, and we 
was looking at some placards posted against a wall, 
when Mr. Locky, the innkeeper, came along, and after 
bidding us good morning he asked Jone what party 
he belonged to. “Pm a Home Ruler,” said Jone, 
97 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


“especially in the matter of tricycles .’ 7 Mr. Locky 
didn’t understand the last part of this speech, but I 
did, and he said, “I am glad you are not a Tory, sir. 
If you will read that, you will see what the Tory 
party has done for us,” and he pointed out some lines 
at the bottom of a green placard, and these was the 
words : “Remember it was the Tory party that lost us 
the United States of America.” 

“Well,” said Jone, “that seems like going a long way 
off to get some stones to throw at the Tories, but I 
feel inclined to heave a rock at them myself for the 
injury that party has done to America.” 

“To America ! ” said Mr. Locky. “Did the Tories 
ever harm America?” 

“Of course they did,” said Jone. “They lost us Eng- 
land, a very valuable country, indeed, and a great loss 
to any nation. If it had not been for the Tory party, 
Mr. Gladstone might now be in Washington as a sen- 
ator from Middlesex.” 

Mr. Locky didn’t understand one word of this, and 
so he asked Jone which leg his rheumatism was in, 
and when Jone told him it was his left leg, he said it 
was a very curious thing, but if you would take a 
hundred men in Chedcombe, there would be at least 
sixty with rheumatism in the left leg, and perhaps 
not more than twenty with it in the right, which was 
something the doctors never had explained yet. 

It is awfully hard to go away and leave this lovely 
little cottage, with its roses and vines, and Miss Pon- 
dar, and all its sweet-smelling comforts — and not only 
the cottage, but the village, and Mrs. Locky and her 
husband at the Bordley Arms, who couldn’t have been 
kinder to us and more anxious to know what we 
98 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


wanted and what they could do. The fact is that 
when English people do like Americans they go at it 
with just as much vim and earnestness as if they was 
helping Britannia to rule more waves. 

While I was feeling badly at leaving Miss Pondar, 
your letter came, dear madam, and I must say it gave 
heavy hearts to Jone and me, to me especially, as you 
can well understand. I went off into the summer- 
house, and as I sat there thinking and reading the 
letter over again, I do believe some tears came into 
my eyes. And Miss Pondar, who was working in the 
garden only a little way off, — for if there is anything 
she likes to do, it is to weed and fuss among the rose- 
bushes and other flowers, which she does whenever 
her other work gives her a chance,— she happened to 
look up, and seeing that I was in trouble, she came 
right to me, like the good woman she is, and asked 
me if I had heard bad news, and if I would like a lit- 
tle gin and water. 

I said that I had had bad news, but that I did not 
want any spirits, and she said she hoped nothing had 
happened to any of my family, and I told her not ex- 
actly ; but in looking back it seemed as if it was al- 
most that way. I thought I ought to tell her what 
had happened, for I could see that she was really feel- 
ing for me, and so I said : “Poor Lord Edward is dead. 
To be sure, he was very old, and I suppose we had not 
any right to think he’d live even as long as he did, 
and as he was nearly blind, and had very poor use of 
his legs, it was, perhaps, better that he should go. 
But when I think of what friends we used to be before 
I was married, I can’t help feeling badly to think that 
he has gone— that when I go back to America he will 
99 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


not show he is glad to see me home again, which he 
would he if there wasn’t another soul on the whole 
continent who felt that way.” 

Miss Pondar was now standing up with her hands 
folded in front of her, and her head bowed down as 
if she was walking behind a hearse with eight ostrich- 
plumes on it. “Lord Edward ! ” she said, in a melan- 
choly, respectful voice. “And will his remains be 
brought to England for interment?” 

“Oh, no,” said I, not understanding what she was 
talking about. “I am sure he will be buried some- 
where near his home, and when I go back his grave 
will be one of the first places I will visit.” 

A streak of bewilderment began to show itself in 
Miss Pondar’s melancholy respectfulness, and she said : 
“Of course, when one lives in foreign parts one may 
die there, but I always thought in cases like that they 
were brought home to their family vaults.” 

It may seem strange for me to think of anything 
funny at a time like this, but when Miss Pondar men- 
tioned family vaults when talking of Lord Edward, 
there came into my mind the jumps he used to make 
whenever he saw any of us coming home. But I saw 
what she was driving at, and the mistake she had 
made. “Oh,” I said, “he was not a member of the 
British nobility. He was a dog. Lord Edward was his 
name. I never loved any animal as I loved him.” 

I suppose, madam, that you must sometimes have 
noticed one of the top candles of a chandelier, when 
the room gets hot, suddenly bending over and droop- 
ing, and shedding tears of hot paraffine on the candles 
below, and perhaps on the table ; and if you can re- 
member what that overcome candle looked like, you 
100 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 

will have an idea of what Miss Pondar looked like 
when she found out Lord Edward was a dog. I think 
that for one brief moment she hugged to her bosom the 
fond belief that I was intimate with the aristocracy, 
and that a noble lord, had he not departed this life, 
would have been the first to welcome me home, and 
that she— she herself— was in my service. But the 
drop was an awful one. I could see the throes of 
mortified disappointment in her back, as she leaned 
over a bed of pinks, pulling out young plants, I am 
afraid, as well as weeds. When I looked at her, I 
was sorry I let her know it was a dog I mourned. 
She has tried so hard to make everything all right 
while we have been here, that she might just as well 
have gone on thinking that it was a noble earl who 
died. 

To-morrow morning we shall have our last Devon- 
shire clotted cream, for they tell me this is to be had 
only in the west of England, and when I think of the 
beautiful hills and vales of this country I shall not 
forget that. 

Of course, we would not have time to stay here 
longer, even if Jone hadn’t got the rheumatism. But 
if he had to have it, for which I am as sorry as any- 
body can be, it is a lucky thing that he did have it just 
about the time that we ought to be going away, any- 
how. And although I did not think, when we came 
to England, that we should ever go to Buxton, we are 
thankful that there is such a place to go to, although, 
for my part, I can’t help feeling disappointed that the 
season isn’t such that we could go to Bath, and Eve- 
lina and Beau Brummel. 


101 


LETTER NUMBER FOURTEEN 


Bell Hotel, Gloucester. 
We came to this queer old English town, not because 
it is any better than so many other towns, but because 
Mr. Poplington told us it was a good place for our 
headquarters while we was seeing the river Wye 
and other things in the neighborhood. This hotel is 
the best in the town, and very well kept, so that Jone 
made his usual remark about its being a good place 
to stay in. We are near the point where the four 
principal streets of the town, called Northgate, East- 
gate, Southgate, and Westgate, meet, and if there was 
nothing else to see, it would be worth while to stand 
there and look at so much Englishism coming and go- 
ing from four different quarters. 

There is another hotel here, called the New Inn, 
that was recommended to us, but I thought we would 
not want to go there, for we came to see old England, 
and I don’t want to see its new and shiny things, so 
we came to the Bell as being more antique. But I 
have since found out that the New Inn was built in 
1450 to accommodate the pilgrims who came to pay 
their respects to the tomb of Edward II in the fine 
old cathedral here. But though I should like to live 
in a four-hundred-and-forty-year-old house, we are 
very well satisfied where we are. 


102 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


Two very good things come from Gloucester, for it 
is the well-spring of Sunday-schools and vaccination. 
They keep here the horns of the cow that Dr. Jenner 
first vaccinated from, and not far from our hotel is the 
house of Robert Raikes. This is an old-fashioned 
timber house, and looks like a man wearing his skele- 
ton outside of his skin. We are sorry Mr. Poplington 
couldn’t come here with us, for he could have shown 
us a great many things. But he stayed at Chedcombe 
to finish his fishing, and he said he might meet us at 
Buxton, where he goes every year for his arm. 

To see the river Wye you must go down it, so, 
with just one hand-bag, we took the train for the little 
town of Ross, which is near the beginning of the nav- 
igable part of the river— I might almost say the 
wadable part, for I imagine the deepest soundings 
about Ross are not more than half a yard. We stayed 
all night at a hotel overlooking the valley of the little 
river, and as the best way to see this wonderful stream 
is to go down it in a rowboat, as soon as we reached 
Ross we engaged a boat and a man for the next morn- 
ing to take us to Monmouth, which would be about a 
day’s row, and give us the best part of the river. But 
I must say that when we looked out over the valley 
the prospect was not very encouraging, for it seemed 
to me that if the sun came out hot it would dry up 
that river, and Jone might not be willing to wait 
until the next heavy rain. 

While we was at Chedcombe I read the “Maid of 
Sker,” because its scenes are laid in the Bristol Chan- 
nel, about the coast near where we was, and over in 
Wales. And when, the next morning, we went down 
to the boat which we was going to take our day’s trip 
103 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


in, and I saw the man who was to row us, David Llew- 
ellyn popped straight into my mind. 

This man was elderly, with gray hair, and a beard 
under his chin, with a general air of water and fish. 
He was good-natured and sociable from the very be- 
ginning. It seemed a shame that an old man should 
row two people so much younger than he was, but 
after I had looked at him pulling at his oars for a lit- 
tle while, I saw that there was no need of pitying 
him. 

It was a good day, with only one or two drizzles in 
the morning, and we had not gone far before I found 
that the Wye was more of a river than I thought it 
was, though never any bigger than a creek. It was 
just about warm enough for a boat trip, though the 
old man told us there had been a “rime ” that morn- 
ing, which made me think of the “ Ancient Mariner.” 
The more the boatman talked and made queer jokes, 
the more I wanted to ask him his name, and I hoped 
he would say David Llewellyn, or at least David, and, 
as a sort of feeler, I asked him if he had ever seen a 
coracle. “A corkle ? ” said he. “Oh, yes, ma’am, I’ve 
seen many a one, and rowed in them.” 

I couldn’t wait any longer, and so I asked him his 
name. He stopped rowing, and leaned on his oars 
and let the boat drift. “How,” said he, “if you’ve 
got a piece of paper and a pencil, I wish you would 
listen careful and put down my name, and if you ever 
know of any other people in your country coming to 
the river Wye, I wish you would tell them my name, 
and say I am a boatman, and can take them down the 
river better than anybody else that’s on it. My name 
is Samivel Jones. Be sure you’ve got that right, 
104 


POMONA'S TRAVELS 


please— Sami vel Jones. I was born on this river, and 
I rowed on it with my father when I was a boy, and 
I have rowed on it ever since, and now I am sixty -five 
years old. Do you want to know why this river is 
called the Wye? I will tell you. Wye means 
crooked, so this river is called the Wye because it is 
crooked. Wye, the crooked river.” 

There was no doubt about the old man’s being right 
about the crookedness of the stream. If you have 
ever noticed an ant running over the floor, you will 
have an idea how the Wye runs through this beauti- 
ful country. If it comes to a hill, it doesn’t just pass 
it and let you see one side of it, but it goes as far 
around it as it can, and then goes back again, and 
goes around some other hill, or great rocky point, or 
a clump of woods, or anything else that travellers 
might like to see. At one place, called Symond’s Yat, 
it makes a curve so great that if we was to get out of 
our boat and walk across the land, we would have to 
walk less than half a mile before we came to the river 
again ; but to row around the curve as we did, we 
had to go five miles. 

Every now and then we came to rapids. I didn’t 
count them, but I think there must have been about 
one to every mile, where the river-bed was full of 
rocks, and where the water rushed furiously around 
and over them. If we had been rowing ourselves we 
would have gone on shore and camped when we came 
to the first of these rapids, for we wouldn’t have sup- 
posed our little boat could go through those tumbling, 
rushing waters. But old Samivel knew exactly how 
the narrow channel, just deep enough sometimes for 
our boat to float without bumping the bottom, runs 
105 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


and twists itself among the hidden rocks, and he’d 
stand up in the bow and push the boat this way and 
that until it slid into the quiet water again, and he 
sat down to his oars. After we had been through four 
or five of these we didn’t feel any more afraid than if 
we had been sitting together on our own little back 
porch. 

As for the banks of this river, they got more and 
more beautiful as we went on. There was high hills 
with some castles, woods and crags and grassy slopes, 
and now and then a lordly mansion or two, and great 
massive, rocky walls, bedecked with vines and moss, 
rising high up above our heads and shutting us out 
from the world. 

Jone and I was filled as full as our minds could hold 
with the romantic loveliness of the river and its banks, 
and old Samivel was so pleased to see how we liked it 
—for I believe he looked upon that river as his pri- 
vate property— that he told us about everything we 
saw, and pointed out a lot of things we wouldn’t have 
noticed if it hadn’t been for him, as if he had been a 
man explaining a panorama, and pointing out with a 
stick the notable spots as the canvas unrolled. 

The only thing in his show which didn’t satisfy him 
was two very fine houses which had both of them be- 
longed to noble personages in days gone by, but which 
had been sold, one to a man who had made his money 
in tea, and the other to a man who had made money 
in cotton. “ Think of that ! ” said he, “ cotton and tea, 
and living in such mansions as them are, once owned 
by lords. They are both good men, and gives a great 
deal to the poor, and does all they can for the coun- 
try. But only think of it, madam— cotton and tea ! 

106 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


But all that happened a good while ago, and the world 
is getting too enlightened now for such estates as 
them are to come to cotton and tea.” 

Sometimes we passed houses and little settlements, 
but, for the most part, the country was as wild as un- 
discovered lands, which, being that to me, I felt hap- 
pier, I am sure, than Columbus did when he first 
sighted floating weeds. Jone was a good deal wound 
up, too, for he had never seen anything so beautiful as 
all this. We had our luncheon at a little inn, where 
the bread was so good that for a time I forgot the 
scenery, and then we went on, passing through the 
Forest of Dean, lonely and solemn, with great oak- and 
beech-trees, and Robin Hood and his merry men 
watching us from behind the bushes, for all we knew. 
Whenever the river twists itself around, as if to show 
us a new view, old Bamivel would say : “How, isn’t 
that the prettiest thing you’ve seen yet? ” and he got 
prouder and prouder of his river every mile he rowed. 

At one place he stopped and rested on his oars. 
“How, then,” said he, twinkling up his face as if he 
was really David Llewellyn showing us a fish with its 
eyes bulged out with sticks to make it look fresh, “as 
we are out on a kind of a lark, suppose we try a bit 
of a hecho.” And then he turned to a rocky valley on 
his left, and, in a voice like the man at the station 
calling out the trains, he yelled, “Hello, there, sir ! 
What are you doing there, sir? Come out of that ! ” 
And when the words came back as if they had been 
balls batted against a wall, he turned and looked at 
us as proud and grinny as if the rocks had been his 
own baby saying “papa” and “mamma” for visitors. 

Hot long after this we came to a place where there 
107 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


was a wide field on one side, and a little way off we 
could see the top of a house among the trees. A 
hedge came across the field to the river, and near the 
bank was a big gate, and on this gate sat two young 
women, and down on the ground on the side of the 
hedge nearest to us was another young woman, and 
not far from her was three black hogs, two of them 
pointing their noses at her and grunting, and the 
other was grunting around a place where those young 
women had been making sketches and drawings, and 
punching his nose into the easels and portfolios on the 
ground. The young woman on the grass was striking 
at the hogs with a stick, and trying to make them go 
away, which they wouldn’t do ; and just as we came 
near she dropped the stick and ran, and climbed up 
on the gate beside the others, after which all the hogs 
went to rooting among the drawing-things. 

As soon as Samivel saw what was going on, he 
stopped his boat, and shouted to the hogs a great deal 
louder than he had shouted to the echo, but they 
didn’t mind any more than they had minded the girl 
with the stick. “ Can’t we stop the boat,” I said, “and 
get out and drive off those hogs? They will eat up 
all the papers and sketches.” 

“Just put me ashore,” said Jone, “and I’ll clear 
them out in no time.” And old Samivel rowed the 
boat close up to the bank. 

But when Jone got suddenly up on his feet there 
was such a twitch across his face that I said to him, 
“Now just you sit down. If you go ashore to drive 
off those hogs, you’ll jump about so that you’ll bring on 
such a rheumatism you can’t sleep.” 

“I’ll get out myself,” said Samivel, “if I can find a 
108 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


place to fasten the boat to. I can’t run her ashore 
here, and the current is strong.” 

“Don’t you leave the boat,” said I, for the thought 
of Jone and me drifting off and coming without him 
to one of those rapids sent a shudder through me, and 
as the stern of the boat where I sat was close to the 
shore, I jumped, with Jone’s stick in my hand, before 
either of them could hinder me. I was so afraid that 
Jone would do it that I was very quick about it. 

The minute I left the boat, Jone got ready to come 
after me, for he had no notion of letting me be on 
shore by myself. But the boat had drifted off a little, 
and old Samivel said : 

“That is a pretty steep bank to get up with the 
rheumatism on you. I’ll take you a little farther 
down, where I can ground the boat, and you can get 
off more steadier.” 

But this letter is getting as long as the river Wye 
itself, and I must stop it. 


109 


LETTER NUMBER FIFTEEN 


Bell Hotel, Gloucester. 
As soon as I jumped on shore, as I told you in my last, 
and had taken a good grip on Jone’s heavy stick, I 
went for those hogs, for I wanted to drive them off 
before Jone came ashore, for I didn’t want him to 
think he must come. 

I have driven hogs and cows out of lots and yards 
often enough, as you know yourself, madam, so I just 
stepped up to the biggest of them, and hit him a 
whack across the head as he was rubbing his nose in 
among some papers with bits of landscapes on them, 
as was enough to make him give up studying art for 
the rest of his life. But — would you believe it, madam ! 
—instead of running away, he just made a bolt at me, 
and gave me such a push with his head and shoulders 
he nearly knocked me over. I never was so aston- 
ished, for they looked like hogs that you might think 
could be chased out of a yard by a boy. But I gave 
the fellow another crack on the back, which he didn’t 
seem to notice, but just turned again to give me an- 
other push, and, at the same minute, the two others 
stopped rooting among the paint-boxes and came 
grunting at me. 

For the first time in my life I was frightened by 
hogs. I struck at them as hard as I could, and, before 
110 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


I knew what I was about, I flung down the stick, made 
a rush for that gate, and was on top of it in no time, 
in company with the three other young women that 
was sitting there already. 

“Really,” said the one next to me, “I fancied you 
was going to be gored to atoms before our eyes. 
Whatever made you go to those nasty beasts?” 

I looked at her quite severe, getting my feet well 
up out of reach of the hogs, if they should come 
near us. 

“I saw you was in trouble, miss, and I came to help 
you. My husband wanted to come, but he has the 
rheumatism, and I wouldn’t let him.” 

The other two young women looked at me as well 
as they could around the one that was near me, and 
the one that was farthest off said : 

“If the creatures could have been driven off by a 
woman, we could have done it ourselves. I don’t 
know why you should think you could do it any bet- 
ter than we could.” 

I must say, madam, that at that minute I was a lit- 
tle humble-minded, for I don’t mind confessing to you 
that the idea of one American woman plunging into a 
conflict that had frightened off three Englishwomen, 
and coming out victorious, had a good deal to do with 
my trying to drive away those hogs ; and now that I 
had come out of the little end of the horn, just as the 
young women had, I felt pretty small, but I wasn’t 
going to let them see that. 

“I think that English hogs,” said I, “must be sav- 
ager than American ones. Where I live, there is not 
any kind of a hog that would not run away if I shook 
a stick at him.” 


Ill 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


The young woman at the other end of the gate now 
spoke again. 

“Everything British is braver than anything Ameri- 
can/’ said she, “and all you have done has been to 
vex those hogs, and they are chewing up our drawing- 
things worse than they did before.” 

Of course, I fired up at this, and said, “You are very 
much mistaken about Americans.” 

But before I could say any more, she went on to 
tell me that she knew all about Americans. She had 
been in America, and such a place she could never 
have fancied. 

“Over there you let everybody trample over you 
as much as they please. You have no conveniences. 
One cannot even get a cab. Fancy ! Not a cab to be 
had, unless one pays enough for a drive in Hyde Park.” 

I must say that the hogs charging down on me 
didn’t astonish me any more than to find myself on 
top of a gate with a young woman charging on my 
country in this fashion ; and it was pretty hard on me 
to have her pitch into the cab question, because Jone 
and me had had quite a good deal to say about cabs 
ourselves, comparing New York and London, without 
any great fluttering of the Stars and Stripes. But I 
wasn’t going to stand any such talk as that, and so I 
said : 

“I know very well that our cab charges are high, 
and it is not likely that poor people coming from 
other countries are able to pay them. But as soon as 
our big cities get filled up with wretched, half-starved 
people, with the children crying for bread at home, 
and the father glad enough that he’s able to get peo- 
ple to pay him a shilling for a drive, and that he’s not 
112 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


among the hundreds and thousands of miserable men 
who have not any work at all, and go howling to 
Hyde Park to hold meetings for blood or bread, then 
we will be likely to have cheap cabs, as you have.” 

“How perfectly awful ! ” said the young woman 
nearest me. But the one at the other end of the gate 
didn’t seem to mind what I said, but shifted off on 
another track. 

“And then, there’s your horses’ tails,” said she. 
“Anything nastier couldn’t be fancied. Hundreds of 
them everywhere with long tails down to their heels, 
as if they belonged to heathens who had never been 
civilized.” 

“Heathens'?” said I. “If you call the Arabians 
heathens, who have the finest horses in the world, and 
wouldn’t any more think of cutting off their tails than 
they would think of cutting their legs off, and if you 
call the cruel scoundrels who torture their poor horses 
by sawing their bones apart so as to get a little 
stuck-up bob on behind, like a moth-eaten paint- 
brush— if you call them Christians, then I suppose 
you’re right. There is a law in some parts of our 
country against the wickedness of chopping off the 
tails of live horses, and if you had such a law here 
you’d be a good deal more Christian-like than you 
are, to say nothing of getting credit for decent 
taste.” 

By this time I had forgotten all about what Jone 
and I had agreed upon as to arguing over the differ- 
ences between countries, and I was just as peppery as 
a wasp. The young woman at the other end of the 
gate was rather waspy, too, for she seemed to want to 
sting me wherever she could find a spot uncovered, 
113 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


and now she dropped off her horses’ tails, and began 
to laugh until her face got purple. 

“You Americans are so awfully odd,” she said. 
u You say you 1 raise ’ your corn and your plants instead 
of 1 growing ’ them. It nearly makes me die laughing 
when I hear one of you Americans say 1 raise’ when 
you mean ‘grow.’ ” 

Now, Jone and me had had some talk about growing 
and raising, and the reasons for and against our way 
of using the words, but I was ready to throw all this 
to the winds, and was just about to tell the impudent 
young woman that we raised our plants just the same 
as we raised our children, leaving them to do their 
own growing, when the young woman in the middle 
of the three, who up to this time hadn’t said a word, 
screamed out : 

“Oh, dear ! Oh, dear ! He’s pulled out my draw- 
ing of Wilton Bridge. He’ll eat it up. Oh, dear ! 
Oh, dear ! Whatever shall I do ? ” 

Instead of speaking, I turned quick and looked at 
the hogs, and there, sure enough, one of them had 
rooted open a portfolio, and had hold of the corners 
of a colored picture, which, from where I sat, I could 
see was perfectly beautiful. The sky and the trees 
and the water was just like what we ourselves had 
seen a little while ago, and in about half a minute 
that hog would chew it up and swallow it. 

The young woman next to me had an umbrella in 
her hand. I made a snatch at this, and dropped off 
that gate like a shot. I didn’t stop to think about 
anything except that that beautiful picture was on the 
point of being swallowed up, and, with a screech, I 
dashed at those hogs like a steam-engine. When they 
114 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


saw me coining with, my screech and the umbrella, 
they didn’t stop a second, but, with three great wig- 
gles and three scared grunts, they bolted as fast as 
they could go. I picked up the picture of the bridge, 
together with the portfolio, and took them to the 
young woman who owned them. As the hogs had 
gone, all three of the women was now getting down 
from the gate. 

“Thank you very much,” she said, “for saving my 
drawings. It was awfully good of you, especially—” 

“Oh, you are welcome,” said I, cutting her off short, 
and, handing the other young woman her umbrella, I 
passed by the impudent one without so much as look- 
ing at her, and on the other side of the hedge I saw 
Jone coming across the grass. I jerked open the gate, 
not caring who it might swing against, and walked to 
meet Jone. When I was near enough, I called out to 
know what on earth had become of him, that he had 
left me there so long by myself, forgetting that I 
hadn’t wanted him to come at all ; and he told me 
that he had had a hard time getting on shore, because 
they found the banks very low and muddy, and when 
he had landed he was on the wrong side of a hedge, 
and had to walk a good way around it. 

“I was troubled,” said he, “because I thought you 
might come to grief with the hogs.” 

“Hogs ! ” said I, so sarcastic that Jone looked hard 
at me. But I didn’t tell him anything more till we 
was in the boat, and then I just said right out what 
had happened. Jone couldn’t help laughing. 

“If I had known,” said he, “that you was on top of 
a gate discussing horses’ tails and cabs, I wouldn’t 
have felt in such a hurry to get to you.” 

115 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


“And yon would have made a mistake if you 
hadn’t/’ I said, “for hogs are nothing to such a person 
as was on that gate.” 

Old Samivel was rowing slow and looking troubled, 
and I believe at that minute he forgot the river Wye 
was crooked. 

“That was really hard, madam,” he said,— “really 
hard on you, but it was a woman, and you have to 
excuse women. Now, if they had been three English- 
men sitting on that gate, they would never have said 
such things to you, knowing that you was a stranger 
in these parts, and had come on shore to do them a 
service. And now, madam, I’m glad to see you are 
beginning to take notice of the landscapes again. 
Just ahead of us is another bend, and when we get 
around that you’ll see the prettiest picture you’ve 
seen yet. This is a crooked river, madam, and that’s 
how it got its name. Wye means crooked.” 

After a while we came to a little church near the 
river-bank, and here Samivel stopped rowing, and, 
putting his hands on his knees, he laughed gayly. 

“It always makes me laugh,” he said, “whenever I 
pass this spot. It seems to me like such an awful good 
joke. Here’s that church on this side of the river, 
and away over there on the other side of the river is 
the rector and the congregation.” 

“And how do they get to church?” said I. 

“In the summer-time,” said he, “they come over 
with a ferry-boat and a rope, but in the winter, when 
the water is frozen, they can’t get over at all. Many’s 
the time I’ve lain in bed and laughed and laughed 
when I thought of this church on one side of the river, 
116 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


and the whole congregation and the rector on the 
other side, and not able to get over.” 

Toward the end of the day, and when we had rowed 
nearly twenty miles, we saw in the distance the town 
of Monmouth, where we was going to stop for the 
night. 

Old Samivel asked us what hotel we was going to 
stop at, and when we told him the one we had picked 
out, he said he could tell us a better one. 

“If I was you,” he said, “I’d go to the Eyengel.” 
We didn’t know what this name meant, but as the old 
man said he would take us there, we agreed to go. 

“I should think you would have a lonely time row- 
ing back by yourself,” I said. 

“Rowing back?” said he. “Why, bless your soul, 
lady, there isn’t nobody who could row this boat back 
agen that current and up them rapids. We take the 
boats back with the pony. We put the boat on a 
wagon, and the pony pulls it back to Ross. And as for 
me, I generally go back by the train. It isn’t so far 
from Monmouth to Ross by the road, for the road is 
straight, and the river winds and bends.” 

The old man took us to the inn which he recom- 
mended, and we found it was the “Angel.” It was a 
nice, old-fashioned, queer English house. As far as I 
could see, they was all women that managed it, and it 
couldn’t have been managed better, and as far as I 
could see, we was the only guests, unless there was 
“commercial gents,” who took themselves away with- 
out our seeing them. 

We was sorry to have old Samivel leave us, and we 
bid him a most friendly good-by, and promised if we 
117 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


ever knew of anybody who wanted to go down the 
river Wye we would recommend them to ask at Boss 
for Samivel Jones to row them. 

We found the landlady of the Angel just as good to 
us as if we had been her favorite niece and nephew. 
She hired us a carriage the next day, and we was 
driven out to Raglan Castle, through miles and miles 
of green and sloping ruralness. When we got there, 
and rambled through those grand old ruins, with the 
drawbridge and the tower and the courtyard, my soul 
went straight back to the days of knights and ladies, 
and prancing steeds, and horns and hawks, and pages 
and tournaments, and wild revels and vaulted halls. 

The young man who had charge of the place seemed 
glad to see how much we liked it, as is natural enough, 
for everybody likes to see us pleased with the partic- 
ular things they have on hand. 

“You haven’t anything like this in your country,” 
said he. 

But to this I said nothing, for I was tired of always 
hearing people speak of my national denomination 
as if I was something in tin cans, with a label pasted 
on outside. But Jone said it was true enough that we 
didn’t have anything like it, for if we had such a 
noble edifice we would have taken care of it, and 
not let it go to rack and ruin in this way. 

Jone has an idea that it don’t show good sense to 
knock a bit of furniture about from garret to cellar 
until most of its legs are broken, and its back cracked, 
and its varnish all peeled off, and then tie ribbons 
around it, and hang it up in the parlor, and kneel 
down to it as a relic of the past. He says that people 
who have got old ruins ought to be very thankful that 
118 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


there is any of them left, but it’s no use in them try- 
ing to fill up the missing parts with brag. 

We took the train and went to Chepstow, which is 
near the mouth of the Wye, and as the railroad ran 
near the river nearly all the way, we had lots of 
beautiful views, though, of course, it wasn’t anything 
like as good as rowing along the stream in a boat. 
The next day we drove to the celebrated Tintern 
Abbey, and on the way the road passed two miles and 
a half of high stone wall, which shut in a gentleman’s 
place. What he wanted to keep in or keep out by 
means of a wall like that, we couldn’t imagine, but 
the place made me think of a lunatic asylum. 

The road soon became shady and beautiful, running 
through woods along the river-bank, and under some 
great crags called the Wyndcliffe, and then we came 
to the abbey, and got out. 

Of all the beautiful high-pointed archery of ancient 
times, this ruined abbey takes the lead. I expect 
you’ve seen it, madam, or read about it, and I am not 
going to describe it. But I will just say that Jone, who 
had rather objected to coming out to see any more 
old ruins, which he never did fancy, and only came 
because he wouldn’t have me come by myself, was so 
touched up in his soul by what he saw there, and by 
wandering through this solemn and beautiful romance 
of bygone days, he said he wouldn’t have missed it 
for fifty dollars. 

We came back to Gloucester to-day, and to-morrow 
we are off for Buxton. As we are so near Stratford 
and Warwick, and all that, Jone said we’d better go 
there on our way, but I wouldn’t agree to it. I am 
too anxious to get him skipping round like a colt, as 
119 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


he used to, to stop anywhere now, and when we come 
hack I can look at Shakespeare’s tomb with a clearer 
conscience. 


London. 

After all, the weather isn’t the only changeable 
thing in this world, and this letter, which I thought 
I was going to send to you from Gloucester, is now 
being finished in London. We was expecting to start 
for Buxton, but some money that Jone had ordered 
to be sent from London two or three days before 
didn’t come, and he thought it would be wise for him 
to go and look after it. So yesterday, which was Sat- 
urday, we started off for London, and came straight 
to the Babylon Hotel, where we had been before. 

Of course, we couldn’t do anything until Monday, 
and this morning when we got up we didn’t feel in 
very good spirits, for of all the doleful things I know 
of, a Sunday in London is the dolefullest. The whole 
town looks as if it was the back door of what it was 
the day before, and if you want to get any good out 
of it, you feel as if you had to sneak in by an alley, 
instead of walking boldly up the front steps. 

Jone said we’d better go to Westminster Abbey to 
church, because he believed in getting the best there 
was when it didn’t cost too much, but I wouldn’t 
do it. 

“No,” said I. “When I walk in that religious nave 
and into the hallowed precincts of the talented de- 
parted, the stone passages are full of cloudy forms of 
Chaucers, Addisons, Miltons, Dickenses, and all those 
great ones of the past, and I would hate to see the 
place filled up with a crowd of week-day lay-people in 
120 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


their Sunday clothes, which would be enough to wipe 
away every feeling of romantic piety which might 
rise within my breast.” 

As we didn’t go to the abbey, and was so long mak- 
ing up our minds where we should go, it got too late 
to go anywhere, and so we stayed in the hotel, and 
looked out into a lonely and deserted street, with the 
wind blowing the little leaves and straws against the 
tight-shut doors of the forsaken houses. As I stood 
by that window I got homesick, and at last I could 
stand it no longer, and I said to Jone, who was smok- 
ing and reading a paper : 

“Let’s put on our hats and go out for a walk, for I 
can’t mope here another minute.” 

So down we went, and coming up the front steps of 
the front entrance who do you suppose we met f Mr. 
Poplington ! He was stopping at that hotel, and was 
just coming home from church, with his face shining 
like a sunset on account of the comfortableness of his 
conscience after doing his duty. 


121 


LETTER NUMBER SIXTEEN 


Buxton. 

When I mentioned Mr. Poplington in my last letter 
in connection with the setting sun I was wrong. He 
was like the rising orb of day, and he filled London 
with effulgent light. No sooner had we had a talk, 
and we had told him all that had happened, and fin- 
ished up by saying what a doleful morning we had 
had, than he clapped his hand on his knees and said : 
“Pll tell you what we will do. We will spend the 
afternoon among the landmarks.” And what we did 
was to take a four-wheeler and go around the old 
parts of London, where Mr. Poplington showed us a 
lot of soul -awakening spots which no common stranger 
would be likely to find for himself. 

If you are ever steeped in the solemness of a Lon- 
don Sunday, and you can get a jolly, red-faced, middle- 
aged English gentleman, who has made himself happy 
by going to church in the morning, and is ready to 
make anybody else happy in the afternoon, just stir 
him up in the mixture, and then you will know the 
difference between cod-liver oil and champagne, even 
if you have never tasted either of them. The after- 
noon was piled-up -and-pressed-down joyfulness for 
me, and I seemed to be walking in a dream among the 
beings and the things that we only see in books. 

122 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


Mr. Poplington first took us to the old Watergate, 
which was the river entrance to York House, where 
Lord Bacon lived, and close to the gate was the small 
house where Peter the Great and David Copperfield 
lived, though not at the same time. And then we went 
to Will’s old coffee-house, where Addison, Steele, and 
a lot of other people of that sort used to go to drink 
and smoke before they was buried in Westminster 
Abbey, and where Charles and Mary Lamb lived 
afterward, and where Mary used to look out of the 
window to see the constables take the thieves to the 
Old Bailey near by. Then we went to Tom-all-alone’s, 
and saw the very grating at the head of the steps 
which led to the old graveyard where poor Joe used 
to sweep the steps when Lady Dedlock came there, 
and I held on to the very bars that the poor lady 
must have gripped when she knelt on the steps to die. 

Not far away was the Black Jack Tavern, where 
Jack Sheppard and all the great thieves of the day 
used to meet. And bless me ! I have read so much 
about Jack Sheppard that I could fairly see him 
jumping out of the window he always dropped from 
when the police came. After that we saw the house 
where Mr. Tulkinghorn, Lady Dedlock’s lawyer, used 
to live, and also the house where old Krook was 
burned up by spontaneous combustion. Then we 
went to Bolt Court, where old Samuel Johnson lived, 
walked about, and talked, and then to another court 
where he lived when he wrote the dictionary, and 
after that to the “ Cheshire Cheese” Inn, where he 
and Oliver Goldsmith often used to take their meals 
together. 

Then we saw St. John’s Gate, where the Knights 
123 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


Templars met, and the yard of the Court of Chancery, 
where little Miss Flite used to wait for the day of 
judgment. And as we was coming home he showed us 
the Church of St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields, where every 
other Friday the bells are rung at five o’clock in the 
afternoon, most people not knowing what it is for, but 
really because the famous Nell Gwyn, who was far 
from being a churchwoman, left a sum of money for 
having a merry peal of bells rung every Friday until 
the end of the world. I got so wound up by all this 
that I quite forgot Jone, and hardly thought of Mr. 
Poplington, except that he was telling me all these 
things, and bringing back to my mind so much that I 
had read about, though sometimes very little. 

When we got back to the hotel and had gone up to 
our room, Jone said to me : 

“That was all very fine and interesting from top to 
toe, but it does seem to me as if things were dreadfully 
mixed. Dr. Johnson and Jack Sheppard, I suppose, 
was all real and could live in houses ; but when it 
comes to David Copperfields and Lady Dedlocks and 
little Miss Flites, that wasn’t real and never lived at 
all, they was all talked about in just the same way, 
and their favorite tramping-grounds pointed out, and 
I can’t separate the real people from the fancy folk, 
if we’ve got to have the same bosom heaving for the 
whole of them.” 

“Jone,” said I, “they are all real, every one of 
them. If Mr. Dickens had written history I expect 
he’d put Lady Dedlock and Miss Flite and David 
Copperfield into it 5 and if the history writers had 
written stories they would have been sure to get Dr. 
Johnson and Lord Bacon and Peter the Great into 


124 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


them ; and the people in the one kind of writing 
would have been just as real as the people in the 
other. At any rate, that’s the way they are to me.” 

On the Monday after our landmark expedition with 
Mr. Poplington, which I shall never forget, Jone set- 
tled up his business matters, and the next day we 
started for Buxton and the rheumatism baths. To 
our great delight, Mr. Poplington said he would go 
with us, not all the way, for he wanted to stop at a 
little place called Rowsley, where he would stay for a 
few days and then go on to Buxton. But we was very 
glad to have him with us during the greater part of 
the way, and we all left the hotel in the same four- 
wheeler. 

When we got to the station Jone got first-class 
tickets, for we have found out that if you want to 
travel comfortable in England, and have porters at- 
tend to your baggage and find an empty carriage for 
you, and have the guard come along and smile in the 
window and say he’ll try to let you have that carriage 
all to yourselves if he’s able— the ableness depending 
a good deal on what you give him— and for every- 
body to do their best to make your journey pleasant, 
you must travel first-class. Mr. Poplington also 
bought a first-class ticket, for there was no seconds on 
this line. As we was walking along by the platform, 
Jone and I gave a sort of a jump, for there was a reg- 
ular Pullman car, which made us think we might be 
at home. We stopped and looked at it, and then the 
guard, who was standing by, stepped up to us and 
touched his hat, and asked us if we would like to take 
the Pullman, and when Jone asked what the extra 
charge was, he said nothing at all for first-class pas- 
125 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


sengers. We didn’t have to stop to think a minute, 
but said right off that we would go in it, but Mr. 
Poplington would not come with us. He said English 
people wasn’t accustomed to that, — they wanted to be 
more private, — and, although he’d like to be with us, 
he could not travel in a caravan like that, and so he 
went off by himself, and we got into the Pullman. 

The guard said we could take any seats we pleased, 
and when we got in we found there was only two or 
three people in it, and we chose two nice arm-chairs, 
hung up our wraps, and made ourselves comfortable 
and cosey. 

We expected that the people who engaged seats 
would soon come crowding in, but when the train 
started there was only four people besides ourselves 
in that beautiful car, which was a first-class one, built 
in the United States, with all sorts of comforts and 
conveniences. There was a porter who laid himself 
out to make us happy, and about one o’clock we had 
a nice lunch on a little table which was set up be- 
tween us, with two waiters to attend to us, and then 
Jone went and had a smoke in a small room at one 
end of the car. 

We thought it was strange that there should be so 
few people travelling on this train, but when we came 
to a town where we made a long stop, Jone got out to 
talk to Mr. Poplington, supposing it likely that he’d 
have a carriage to himself. But he was amazed to see 
that the train was jammed and crowded, and he found 
Mr. Poplington squeezed up in a carriage with seven 
other people, four of them one side and four the other, 
each row staring into the faces of the other. Some of 
them was eating bread and cheese out of paper par- 
126 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


cels, and a big fat man was reading a newspaper, 
which he spread out so as to partly cover the two 
people sitting next to him, and all of them seemed 
anxious to find some way of stretching their legs so as 
not to strike against the legs of somebody else. 

Mr. Poplington was sitting by the window, and 
Jone couldn’t help laughing when he said: 

“Is this what you call being private, sir? I think 
you would find a caravan more pleasant. Don’t you 
want to come to the Pullman with us? There are 
plenty of seats there— nice big arm-chairs that you can 
turn around and sit any way you like, and look at 
people or not look at them, just as you please, and 
there’s plenty of room to walk about and stretch 
yourself a little, if you want to. There’s a smoking- 
room, too, that you can go to and leave whenever you 
like. Come and try it.” 

“Thank you very much,” said Mr. Poplington, “but 
I really couldn’t do that. I am not prejudiced at all, 
and I have a good many democratic ideas, but that is 
too much for me. An Englishman’s house is his 
castle, and when he’s travelling his railway carriage 
is his house. He likes privacy and dislikes publicity.” 

“This is a funny kind of privacy you have here,” 
said Jone. “And how about your big clubs? Would 
you like to have them all divided up into little com- 
partments, with half a dozen men in each one, gener- 
ally strangers to each other?” 

“Oh, a club is a very different thing,” said Mr. 
Poplington. 

Jone was going to talk more about the comfort of 
the Pullman cars, but they began to shut the carriage 
doors, and he had to come back to me. 

127 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


We like English railway carriages very well when 
we can have one to ourselves, but if even one stranger 
gets in, and has to sit looking at us for all the rest of 
the trip, you don’t feel anything like as private as if 
you was walking along a sidewalk in London. 

But Jone and I both agreed we wouldn’t find any 
fault with English people for not liking Pullman cars, 
so long as they put them on their trains for Americans 
who do like them. And one thing is certain— that if 
our railroad conductors and brakesmen and porters 
was as polite and kind as they are in England, tips or 
no tips, we’d be a great deal better off than we are. 

Whenever we stopped at a station, the people would 
come and look through the windows at us, as if we 
was some sort of a travelling show. I don’t believe 
most of them had ever seen a comfortable room on 
wheels before. The other people in our car was all 
men, and looked as if they hadn’t their families with 
them, and was glad to get a little comfort on the sly. 
When we got to Rowsley we saw Mr. Poplington on 
the platform, running about, collecting all his differ- 
ent bits of luggage, and counting them to see that 
they was all there, and then, as we had a window 
open and was looking out, he came and bid us good- 
by, and when I asked him to, he looked into our car. 

“Oh, dear ! oh, dear ! ” he said. “What a public 
apartment ! I could not travel like that, you know. 
Good-by. I will see you at Buxton in a few days.” 

We talked a good deal with Mr. Poplington about 
the hotels of Buxton, and we had agreed to go to one 
called the Old Hall, where we are now. There was a 
good many reasons why we chose this house, one be- 
ing that it was not as expensive as some of the others, 
128 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


though very nice, and another, which had a good 
deal of force with me, was that Mary Queen of Scots 
came here for her rheumatism, and the room she used 
to have is still kept, with some words she scratched 
with her diamond ring on the window-pane. Some- 
times people coming to this hotel can get this room, 
and I was mighty sorry we couldn’t do it, but it was 
taken. If I could have actually lived and slept in a 
room which had belonged to the beautiful Mary 
Queen of Scots, I would have been willing to have 
just as much rheumatism as she had when she was 
here. 

Of course, modern rheumatisms are not as interest- 
ing as the rheumatisms people of the past ages had ; 
but from what I have seen of this town, I think I am 
going to like it very much. 


129 


LETTER NUMBER SEVENTEEN 


Buxton. 

When we were comfortably settled here, Jone went 
to see a doctor, who is a nice, kind old gentleman, 
who looks as if he almost might have told Mary 
Queen of Scots how hot she ought to have the water 
in her baths. He charges four times as much as the 
others, and has about a quarter as many patients, 
which makes it all the same to him, and a good deal 
better for the rheumatic ones who come to him, for 
they have more time to go into particulars. And if 
anything does good to a person who has something 
the matter with him, it’s being able to go into partic- 
ulars about it. It’s often as good as medicine, and 
always more comforting. 

We unpacked our trunks and settled ourselves down 
for a three weeks’ stay here, for no matter how much 
rheumatism you have, or how little, you’ve got to take 
Buxton and its baths in three weeks’ doses. 

Besides taking the baths, Jone has to drink the 
waters, and as I cannot do much else to help him, I 
am encouraging him by drinking them too. There 
are two places where you can get the lukewarm water 
that people come here to drink. One is the public 
well, where there is a pump free to everybody, and 
130 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


the other is in the pump-room just across the street 
from the well, where you pay a penny a glass for the 
same water, which three doleful old women spend all 
their time pumping for visitors. 

People are ordered to drink this water very care- 
fully. It must he done at regular times, beginning 
with a little, and taking more and more each day 
until you get to a full tumbler, and then, if it seems 
to be too strong for you, you must take less. So far 
as I can find out, there is nothing particular about it, 
except that it is lukewarm water, neither hot enough 
nor cold enough to make it a pleasant drink. It 
didn’t seem to agree with Jone at first, but after he 
kept at it three or four days it began to suit him bet- 
ter, so that he could take nearly a tumbler without 
feeling badly. Two or three times I felt it might be 
better for my health if I didn’t drink it, but I wanted 
to stand by Jone as much as I could, and so I kept on. 

We have been here a week now, and this morning 
I found out that all the water we drink at this hotel 
is brought from the well of St. Ann, where the public 
pump is, and everybody drinks just as much of it as 
they want whenever they want to, and they never 
think of any such thing as feeling badly or better 
than if it was common water. The only difference is, 
that it isn’t quite as lukewarm when we get it here 
as it is at the well. When I was told this I was real 
mad, after all the measuring and fussing we had had 
when taking the water as a medicine, and then drink- 
ing it just as we pleased at the table. But the people 
here tell me that it is the gas in it which makes it 
medicinal, and when that floats out it is just like com- 
mon water. That may be, but if there’s a penny’s 
131 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


worth of gas in every tumbler of water sold in the 
pump-room, there ought to be some sort of a canopy 
put over the town to catch what must escape in the 
pourings and pumpings, for it’s too valuable to be al- 
lowed to get away. If it’s the gas that does it, a rheu- 
matic man anchored in a balloon over Buxton, and 
having the gas coming up unmixed to him, ought to 
be well in about two days. 

When Jone told me his first bath was to be heated 
up to ninety-four degrees, I said to him that he’d be 
boiled alive. But he wasn’t, and when he came home 
he said he liked it. Everything is very systematic 
in the great bathing-house. The man who tends to 
Jone hangs up his watch on a little stand on the edge 
of the bath-tub, and he stays in just so many minutes, 
and when he’s ready to come out he rings a bell, and 
then he’s wrapped up in about fourteen hot towels, 
and sits in an arm-chair until he’s dry. Jone likes all 
this, and says so much about it that it makes me want 
to try it too— though, as there isn’t any reason for it, 
I haven’t tried them yet. 

This is an awfully queer, old-fashioned town, and 
must have been a good deal like Bath in the days of 
Evelina. There is a long line of high buildings 
curved like a half-moon, which is called the Crescent, 
and at one end of this is a pump-room, and at the 
other are the natural baths, where the water is just 
as warm as when it comes out of the ground, which is 
eighty-two degrees. This is said to chill people, but, 
from what I remember about summer-time, I don’t 
see how eighty-two degrees can be cold. 

Opposite the Crescent is a public park called the 
Slopes, and farther on there are great gardens with 
132 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


pavilions, and a band of music every day, and a the- 
atre, and a little river, and tennis-courts, and all sorts 
of things for people who haven’t anything to do with 
their time, which is generally the case with folks at 
rheumatic watering-places. Opposite to our hotel is 
a bowling-court, which they say has been there for 
hundreds of years, and is just as hard and smooth as a 
boy’s slate. The men who play bowls here are gener- 
ally those who have got over the rheumatism of their 
youth, and whose joints have not been very much 
stiffened up yet by old age. The people who are yet 
too young for rheumatism, and have come here with 
their families, play tennis. 

The baths take such a little time— not over six or 
seven minutes for them each day, and every third 
day skipped— that there is a good deal of time left on 
the hands of the people here, and those who can’t 
play tennis or bowl, and don’t want to spend the 
whole time in the pavilion listening to the music, go 
about in bath-chairs, which, so far as I can see, are 
just as important as the baths. I don’t know whether 
you ever saw a bath-chair, madam, but it’s a comfort- 
able little cab on three wheels, pulled by a man. 
They take people everywhere, and all the streets are 
full of them. 

As soon as I saw these nice little traps, I said to 
Jone, “Now this is the very thing for you. It hurts 
you to walk far, and you want to see all over this 
town, and one of these bath-chairs will take you into 
lots of places where you couldn’t go in a carriage.” 

“Take me ! ” said Jone. “I should say not. You 
don’t catch me being hauled about in one of those 
things, as if I was in a sort of wheelbarrow-ambulance 
133 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


being taken to the hospital, with you walking along 
by my side like a trained nurse. No, indeed ! I 
have not gone so far as that yet.” 

I told him this was all stuff and nonsense, and if he 
wanted to get the good out of Buxton, he’d better go 
about and see it, and he couldn’t go about if he didn’t 
take a bath-chair. But all he said to that was that he 
could see it without going about, and he was satisfied. 
But that didn’t count anything with me, for the 
trouble with Jone is that he’s too easy satisfied. 

It’s true that there is a lot to be seen in Buxton 
without going about. The Slopes are just across the 
street from the hotel, and, when it doesn’t happen to 
be raining, we can go and sit there on a bench and see 
lively times enough. People are being trundled 
about in their bath-chairs in every direction. There 
is always a crowd at St. Ann’s well, where the pump 
is. All sorts of cabs and carts are being driven up and 
down just as fast as they can go, for the streets are as 
smooth as floors, and in the morning and evening 
there are about half a dozen coaches with four horses, 
and drivers and horn-blowers in red coats, the horses 
prancing and whips cracking as they start out for 
country trips or come back again. And as for the 
people on foot, they just swarm like bees, and rain 
makes no difference, except that then they wear 
mackintoshes, and when it’s fine they don’t. Some of 
these people step along as brisk as if they hadn’t any- 
thing the matter with them, but a good many of them 
help out their legs with canes and crutches. I begin 
to think I can tell how long a man has been at Bux- 
ton by the number of sticks he uses. 

One day we was sitting on a bench in the Slopes, 
134 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


enjoying a bit of sunshine that had just come along, 
when a middle-aged man, with a very high collar and 
a silk hat, came and sat down by Jone. He spoke 
civilly to us, and then went on to say that if ever we 
happened to take a house near Liverpool he’d be glad 
to supply us with coals, because he was a coal mer- 
chant. Jone told him that if he ever did take a house 
near Liverpool he certainly would give him his cus- 
tom. Then the man gave us his card. “I come here 
every year,” he said, “for the rheumatism in my 
shoulder, and if I meet anybody that lives near Liv- 
erpool, or is likely to, I try to get his custom. I like 
it here. There’s a good many ’otels in this town. 
You can see a lot of them from here. There’s St. 
Ann’s. That’s a good house, but they charge you a 
pound a day. And then, there’s the Old Hall. That’s 
good enough, too, but nobody goes there except shop- 
keepers and clergymen. Of course, I don’t mean 
bishops— they go to St. Ann’s.” 

I wondered which the man would think Jone was, 
if he knew we was stopping at the Old Hall. But I 
didn’t ask him, and only said that other people be- 
sides shopkeepers and clergymen went to the Old 
Hall, for Mary Queen of Scots used to stop at that 
house when she came to take the waters, and her 
room was still there, just as it used to be. 

“Mary Queen of Scots ! ” said he. “At the Old 
Hall? ” 

“Yes,” said I, “that’s where she used to go— that 
was her hotel.” 

“Queen Mary, Queen of the Scots ! ” he said again. 
“Well, well, I wouldn’t have believed it. But them 
Scotch people always was close-fisted. How, if it had 
135 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


been Queen Elizabeth, she wouldn’t have minded a 
pound a day.” And then, after asking Jone to excuse 
him for forgetting his manners and not asking where 
his rheumatism was, and having got his answer, he 
went away, wondering, I expect, how Mary Queen of 
Scots could have been so stingy. 

But although we could see so much sitting on 
benches, I didn’t give up Jone and the bath-chairs, 
and day before yesterday I got the better of him. 
“Now,” said I, “it is stupid for you to be sitting 
around in this way, as if you was a statue of a public 
benefactor carved by subscription and set up in a 
park. The only sensible thing for you to do is to 
take a bath-chair and go around and see things. And 
if you are afraid people will think you are being 
taken to a hospital, you can put down the top of the 
thing, and sit up straight and smoke your pipe. Pa- 
tients in ambulances never smoke pipes. And if you 
don’t want me walking by your side like a trained 
nurse, I’ll take another chair and be pulled along 
with you.” 

The idea of a pipe, and me being in another chair, 
rather struck his fancy, and he said he would consider 
it ; and so that afternoon we went to the hotel door 
and looked at the long line of bath-chairs standing at 
the curbstone on the other side of the street, with the 
men waiting for jobs. The chairs was all pretty much 
alike, and looked very comfortable, but the men was 
as different as if they had been horses. Some looked 
gay and spirited, and others tired and worn out, as if 
they had belonged to sporting men and had been 
driven half to death. And then again, there was some 
136 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


that looked fat and lazy, like the old horses on a farm 
that the women drive to town. 

Jone picked out a good man, who looked as if he 
was well broken, and not afraid of locomotives, and 
able to do good work in single harness. When I got 
Jone in the bath-chair, with the buggy-top down, and 
his pipe lighted, and his hat cocked on one side a lit- 
tle, so as to look as if he was doing the whole thing 
for a lark, I called another chair, not caring what sort 
of one it was, and then we told the men to pull us 
around for a couple of hours, leaving it to them to take 
us to agreeable spots, which they said they would do. 

After we got started Jone seemed to like it very 
well, and we went pretty much all over the town, 
sometimes stopping to look in at the shop -windows, 
for the sidewalks are so narrow that it is no trouble 
to see the things from the street. Then the men took 
us a little way out of the town to a place where there 
was a good view for us, and a bench where they could 
go and sit down and rest. I expect all the chairmen 
that work by the hour manage to get to this place 
with a view as soon as they can. 

After they had had a good rest, we started off to go 
home by a different route. Jone’s man was a good, 
strong fellow, and always took the lead, but my puller 
was a different kind of a steed, and sometimes I was 
left pretty far behind. I had not paid much atten- 
tion to the man at first, only noticing that he was 
mighty slow, but going back, a good deal of the way 
was uphill, and then all his imperfections came out 
plain, and I couldn’t help studying him. If he had 
been a horse I should have said he was spavined and 
137 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


foundered, with split frogs and tonsilitis ; but as he 
was a man, it struck me that he must have had several 
different kinds of rheumatism, and been sent to Bux- 
ton to have them cured, but not taking the baths 
properly, or drinking the water at times when he 
ought not to have done it, his rheumatisms had all 
run together, and had become fixed and immovable. 
How such a creaky person came to be a bath-chair- 
man I could not think, but it may be that he wanted 
to stay in Buxton for the sake of the loose gas which 
could be had for nothing, and that bath-chairing was 
all he could get to do. 

I pitied the poor old fellow, who, if he had been a 
horse, would have been no more than fourteen hands 
high, and as he went puffing along, tugging and grunt- 
ing as if I was a load of coal, I felt as if I couldn’t 
stand it another minute, and I called out to him to 
stop. It did seem as if he would drop before he got 
me back to the hotel, and I bounced out in no time, 
and then I walked in front of him and turned around 
and looked at him. If it is possible for a human hack- 
horse to have spavins in two joints in each leg, that 
man had them, and he looked as if he couldn’t re- 
member what it was to have a good feed. 

He seemed glad to rest, but didn’t say anything, 
standing and looking straight ahead of him like an 
old horse that has been stopped to let him blow. He 
did look so dreadful feeble that I thought it would be 
a mercy to take him to some member of the Society 
for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and have 
him chloroformed. “Look here,” said I, “you are 
not fit to walk. Get into that bath-chair, and I’ll 
pull you back to your stand.” 

138 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


“Lady,” said he, “I couldn’t do that. If you don’t 
mind walking home, and will pay me for the two 
hours all the same, I will he right thankful for that. 
I’m poorly to-day.” 

“Get into the chair,” said I, “and I’ll pull you 
back. I’d like to do it, for I want some exercise.” 

“Oh, no, no ! ” said he. “That would be a sin. And, 
besides, I was engaged to pull you two hours, and I 
must be paid for that.” 

“Get into that chair,” I said, “and I’ll pay you for 
your two hours, and give you a shilling besides.” 

He looked at me for a minute, and then he got into 
the chair, and I shut him up. 

“Now, lady,” said he, “you can pull me a little 
way if you want exercise, and as soon as you are tired 
you can stop, and I’ll get out, but you must pay me 
the extra shilling all the same.” 

“All right,” said I, and taking hold of the handle, I 
started off. It was real fun. The bath-chair rolled 
along beautifully, and I don’t believe the old man 
weighed much more than my Corinne when I used to 
push her about in her baby-carriage. We were in a 
back street, where there was hardly anybody, and as 
for Jone and his bath-chair, I could just see them 
ever so far ahead, so I started to catch up, and as the 
street was pretty level now, I soon got going at a fine 
rate. I hadn’t had a bit of good exercise for a long 
time, and this warmed me up and made me feel 
gay. 

We was not very far behind Jone when the man be- 
gan to call to me in a sort of frightened fashion, as if 
he thought I was running away. “Stop, lady ! ” he 
said. “We are getting near the gardens, and the peo- 
139 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


pie will laugh at me. Stop, lady, and I’ll get out.” 
But I didn’t feel a bit like stopping. The idea had 
come into my head that it would be jolly to beat 
done. If I could pass him and sail on ahead for a 
little while, then I’d stop and let my old man get out 
and take his bath-chair home. I didn’t want it any 
more. 

Just as I got close up behind Jone, and was about 
to make a rush past him, his man turned into a side 
street. Of course, I turned too, and then I put on 
steam, and, giving a laugh as I turned around to look 
at Jone, I charged on, intending to stop in a minute, 
and have some fun in hearing what Jone had to say 
about it. But you may believe, ma’am, that I was 
amazed when I saw only a little way in front of me 
the bath-chair stand where we had hired our ma- 
chines ! And all the bath-chairmen were standing 
there with their mouths wide open, staring at a 
woman running along the street, pulling an old bath- 
chairman in a bath-chair ! For a second I felt like 
dropping the handle I held, and making a rush for 
the front door of the hotel, which was right ahead of 
me. And then I thought, as now I was in for it, it 
would be a lot better to put a good face on the matter, 
and not look as if I had done anything I was ashamed 
of, and so I just slackened speed and came up in fine 
style at the door of the Old Hall. Four or five of the 
bath-chairmen came running across the street to 
know if anything had happened to the old party I 
was pulling, and he got out looking as ashamed as if 
he had been whipped by his wife. 

“It’s a lark, mates,” said he. “The lady’s to pay me 
two shillings extra for letting her pull me.” 

140 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 

“Two shillings?” said I. “I only promised you 
one ! ” 

“That would be for pulling me a little way,” he 
said $ “but you pulled me all the way back, and I 
couldn’t do it for less than two shillings.” 

Jone now came up, and got out quick. 

“What’s the meaning of all this, Pomona? ” said he. 

“Meaning? ” said I. “Look at that dilapidated old 
bag of bones. He wasn’t fit to pull me, and so I 
thought it would be fun to pull him, but, of course, I 
didn’t know when I turned the corner I would be 
here at the stand.” 

Jone paid the men, including the two extra shil- 
lings, and when we went up to our room he said, “The 
next time we go out in two bath- chairs, I am going to 
have a chain fastened to yours, and I’ll have hold of 
the other end of it.” 


141 


LETTER NUMBER EIGHTEEN 


Buxton. 

I have begun to take the baths. There really is so 
little to do in this place that I couldn’t help it, and 
so, while Jone was off tending to his hot soaks, I 
thought I might as well try the thing myself. At any 
rate, it would fill up the time when I was alone. I 
find I like this sort of bathing very much, and I wish 
I had begun it before. It reminds me of a kind of 
medicine for colds that you used to make for me, 
madam, when I first came to the canal-boat. It had 
lemons and sugar in it, and it was so good, I remember 
I used to think that I would like to go into a linger- 
ing consumption, so that I could have it three times 
a day, until I finally passed away like a lily on a 
snowbank. 

Jone’s been going about a good deal in a bath-chair, 
and doesn’t mind my walking alongside of him. He 
says it makes him feel easier in his mind, on the 
whole. 

Mr. Poplington came two or three days ago, and he 
is stopping at our hotel. We three have hired a car- 
riage together two or three times, and have taken 
drives into the country. Once we went to an inn, the 
u Cat and Fiddle,” about five miles away, on a high bit 
142 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


of ground called Axe Edge. It is said to be tbe high- 
est tavern in England, and it’s lucky that it is, for 
that’s the only recommendation it’s got. The sign in 
front of the house has on it a cat on its hind legs play- 
ing a fiddle, with a look on its face as if it was saying, 
“It’s pretty poor, but it’s the best I can do for you.” 

Inside is another painting of a cat playing a fiddle, 
and truly that one might be saying, “Ha, ha ! You 
thought that that picture on the sign was the worst 
picture you ever saw in your life, but now you see 
how you are mistaken.” 

Up on that high place you get the rain fresher than 
you do in Buxton, because it hasn’t gone so far 
through the air, and it’s mixed with more chilly 
winds than anywhere else in England, I should say. 
But everybody is bound to go to the Cat and Fiddle 
at least once, and we are glad we have been there, 
and that it is over. I like the places near the town 
a great deal better, and some of them are very pretty. 
One day we two and Mr. Poplington took a ride on 
top of a stage to see Haddon Hall and Chatsworth. 

Haddon Hall is to me like a dream of the past come 
true. Lots of other old places have seemed like 
dreams, but this one was right before my eyes, just as 
it always was. Of course, you must have read all 
about it, madam, and I am not going to tell it over 
again. But think of it ! a grand old baronial mansion, 
part of it built as far back as the eleven hundreds, 
and yet in good condition and fit to live in. That is 
what I thought as I walked through its banqueting- 
hall and courts and noble chambers. “Why,” said I 
to Jone, “in that kitchen our meals could be cooked, 
at that table we could eat them ; in these rooms we 
143 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 

could sleep, in these gardens and courts we could 
roam. We could actually live here ! ” We haven’t 
seen any other romance of the past that we could say 
that about, and to this minute it puzzles me how any 
duke in this world could be content to own a house 
like this and not live in it. But I suppose he thinks 
more of water-pipes and electric lights than he does 
of the memories of the past and time-hallowed tradi- 
tions. 

As for me, if I had been Dorothy Vernon, there’s 
no man on earth, not even Jone, that could make me 
run away from such a place as Haddon Hall. They 
show the stairs down which she tripped with her 
lover when they eloped. But if it had been me, it 
would have been up those stairs I would have gone. 
Mr. Poplington didn’t agree a bit with me about the 
joy of living in this enchanting old house, and neither 
did Jone, I am sure, although he didn’t say so much. 
But then, they are both men, and when it comes to 
soaring in the regions of romanticism, you must not 
expect too much of men. 

After leaving Haddon Hall, which I did backward, 
the coach took us to Chatsworth, which is a different 
sort of a place altogether. It is a grand palace— at 
least, it was built for one, but now it is an enormous 
show place, bright and clean and sleek, and when we 
got there we saw hundreds of visitors waiting to go 
in. They was taken through in squads of about fifty, 
with a man to lead them, which he did very much as 
if they was a drove of cattle. 

The man who led our squad made us step along 
lively, and I must say that, never having been in a 
drove before, Jone and I began to get restive long be- 
144 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


fore we got through. As for the show, I like the 
British Museum a great deal better. There is ever so 
much more to see there, and you have time to stop and 
look at things. At Chatsworth they charge you more, 
give you less, and treat you worse. When it came to 
taking us through the grounds, Jone and I struck. 
We left the gang we was with, and being shown 
where to find a gate out of the place, we made for 
that gate, and waited until our coach was ready to 
take us back to Buxton. 

It is a lot of fun going to the theatre here. It 
doesn’t cost much, and the plays are good and gener- 
ally funny, and a rheumatic audience is a very jolly 
one. The people seemed glad to forget their backs, 
their shoulders, and their legs, and they are ready to 
laugh at things that are only half comic, and keep up 
a lively chattering between the acts. It’s fun to see 
them when the play is over. The bath-chairs that 
have come after some of them are brought right into 
the building, and are drawn up just like carriages 
after the theatre. The first time we went, I wanted 
Jone to stop awhile and see if we didn’t hear some- 
body call out, “Mrs. Barchester’s bath -chair stops the 
way ! ” But he said I expected too much, and would 
not wait. 

We sit about so much in the gardens, which are 
lively when it is clear, and not bad even in a little 
drizzle, that we’ve got to know a good many of the 
people ; and although Jone’s a good deal given to 
reading, I like to sit and watch them, and see what 
they are doing. 

When we first came here I noticed a good-looking 
young woman who was hauled about in a bath-chair, 
145 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


generally with an open book in her lap, which she 
never seemed to read much, because she was always 
gazing around as if she was looking for something. 
Before long I found out what she was looking for, for 
every day, sooner or later, generally sooner, there 
came along a bath-chair with a good-looking young 
man in it. He had a book in his lap, too, but he was 
never reading it when I saw him, because he was look- 
ing for the young woman. And as soon as they saw 
each other they began to smile, and as they passed 
they always said something, but didn’t stop. I won- 
dered why they didn’t give their pullers a rest and 
have a good talk if they knew each other, but before 
long I noticed not very far behind the young lady’s 
bath-chair was always another bath-chair with an old 
gentleman in it with a bottle -nose. After a while I 
found out that this was the young lady’s father, be- 
cause sometimes he would call to her and have her 
stop, and then she generally seemed to get some sort 
of a scolding. 

Of course, when I see anything of this kind going 
on, I can’t help taking one side or the other, and as 
you may well believe, madam, I wouldn’t be likely to 
take that of the old bottle-nosed man’s side. I had 
not been noticing these people for more than two or 
three days when one morning, when Jone and me 
was sitting under an umbrella, for there was a little 
more rain than common, I saw these two young peo- 
ple in their bath-chairs, coming along side by side, 
and talking just as hard as they could. At first I was 
surprised, but I soon saw how things was: the old 
gentleman couldn’t come out in the rain. It was 
plain enough, from the way these two young people 
146 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


looked at each other, that they was in love, and al- 
though it most likely hurt them just as much to come 
out into the rain as it would the old man, love is all- 
powerful, even over rheumatism. 

Pretty soon the clouds cleared away without notice, 
as they do in this country, and it wasn’t long before I 
saw, away off, the old man’s bath-chair coming along 
lively. His bottle-nose was sticking up in the air, 
and he was looking from one side to the other as hard 
as he could. The two lovers had turned off to the 
right and gone over a little bridge, and I couldn’t see 
them, but by the way that old nose shook as it got 
nearer and nearer to me, I saw they had reason to 
tremble, though they didn’t know it. 

When the old father reached the narrow path, he 
did not turn down it, but kept straight on, and I 
breathed a sigh of deep relief. But the next instant 
I remembered that the broad path turned not far be- 
yond, and that the little one soon ran into it, and so 
it could not be long before the father and the lovers 
would meet. I like to tell Jone everything I am go- 
ing to do, when I am sure that he’ll agree with me 
that it is right, but this time I could not bother with 
explanations, and so I just told him to sit still for a 
minute, for I wanted to see something, and I walked 
after the young couple as fast as I could. When I got 
to them, for they hadn’t gone very far, I passed the 
young woman’s bath-chair, and then I looked around 
and I said to her : “I beg your pardon, miss, but there 
is an old gentleman looking for you, but as I think 
he is coming round this way, you’ll meet him if you 
keep on this path.” “Oh, my ! ” said she, uninten- 
tionally, and then she thanked me very much, and I 
147 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


went on and turned a corner and went back to Jone, 
and pretty soon the young man’s bath- chair passed us 
going toward the gate, he looking three quarters 
happy, and the other quarter disappointed, as lovers 
are if they don’t get the whole loaf. 

From that day until yesterday, which was a full 
week, I came into the gardens every morning, some- 
times even when Jone didn’t want to come, because I 
wanted to see as much of this love business as I could. 
For my own use in thinking of them, I named the 
young man Pomeroy, and the young woman Angelica, 
and as for the father, I called him Snortfrizzle, being 
the worst name I could think of at the time. But I 
must wait until my next letter to tell you the rest of 
the story of the lovers, and I am sure you will be as 
much interested in them as I was. 


148 


LETTER NUMBER NINETEEN 


Buxton. 

I have a good many things to tell yon, for we leave 
Buxton to-morrow, but I will first finish the story of 
Angelica and Pomeroy. I think the men who pulled 
the bath-chairs of the lovers knew pretty much how 
things was going, for whenever they got a chance they 
brought their chairs together, and I often noticed 
them looking out for the old father, and if they saw 
him coming they would move away from each other 
if they happened to be together. 

If Snortfrizzle’s puller had been one of the regular 
bath-chairmen, they might have made an agreement 
with him so that he would have kept away from them. 
But he was a man in livery, with a high hat, who 
walked very regular, like a high-stepping horse, and 
who, it was plain enough to see, never had anything 
to do with common bath- chairmen. Old Snortfrizzle 
seemed to be smelling a rat more and more— that is, 
if it is proper to liken Cupid to such an animal,— and 
his nose seemed to get purpler and purpler. I think 
he would always have kept close to Angelica’s chair 
if it hadn’t been that he had a way of falling asleep, 
and whenever he did this his man always walked 
very slow, being naturally lazy. Two or three times 
149 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


I have seen Snortfrizzle wake up, shout to his man, 
and make him trot around a clump of trees and into 
some narrow path where he thought his daughter 
might have gone. 

Things began to look pretty bad, for the old man 
had very strong suspicions about Pomeroy, and was 
so very wide awake when he was awake that I knew 
it couldn’t be long before he caught the two together, 
and then I didn’t believe that Angelica would ever 
come into these gardens again. 

It was yesterday morning that I saw old Snortfrizzle 
with his chin down on his shirt-bosom, snoring so 
steady that his hat heaved, being very slowly pulled 
along a shady walk, and then I saw his daughter, who 
was not far ahead of him, turn into another walk, 
which led down by the river. I knew very well that 
she ought not to turn into that walk, because it didn’t 
in any way lead to the place where Pomeroy was sit- 
ting in his bath-chair behind a great clump of bushes 
and flowers, with his face filled with the most lively 
emotions, but overspread ever and anon by a cloudlet 
of despair on account of the approach of the noontide 
hour, when Angelica and Snortfrizzle generally went 
home. 

The time was short, and I believed that love’s 
young dream must be put off until the next day if 
Angelica could not be made aware where Pomeroy 
was sitting, or Pomeroy where Angelica was going. 
So I got right up, and made a short cut down a steep 
little path, and, sure enough, I met her when I got to 
the bottom. “I beg your pardon very much, miss,” 
said I, “but your brother is over there in the entrance 
to the cave, and I think he has been looking for you.” 

150 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


“My brother ? ” said she, turning as red as her ribbons 
was blue. “Oh, thank you very much ! Robertson, 
you may take me that way.” 

It wasn’t long before I saw those two bath-chairs 
alongside of each other, and covered from general ob- 
servation by masses of blooming shrubbery. As I had 
been the cause of bringing them together, I thought I 
had the right to look at them a little while, as that 
would be the only reward I’d be likely to get, and so 
I did it. It was as I thought. Things was coming to 
a climax. The bath- chairmen standing with much 
consideration with their backs to their vehicles, and, 
united for the time being by their clasped hands, the 
lovers grew tender to a degree which I would have 
fain checked, had I been nearer, for fear of notice by 
passers-by. 

But now my blood froze within my veins. I would 
never have believed that a man in a high hat and 
livery a size too small for him could run, but Snort- 
frizzle’s man did, and at a pace which ought to have 
been prohibited by law. I saw him coming from an 
unsuspected quarter, and swoop around that clump 
of flowers and foliage. Regardless of consequences, I 
approached nearer. There was loud voices. There 
was exclamations. There was a rattling of wheels. 
There was the sundering of tender ties ! 

In a moment Pomeroy, who had backed off but a 
little way, began to speak, but his voice was drowned 
in the thunder of Snortfrizzle’s denunciations. An- 
gelica wept, and her head fell upon her lovely bosom, 
and I am sure I heard her implore her man to remove 
her from the scene. Pomeroy remained, his face firm, 
his eyes undaunted. But Snortfrizzle shook his fist in 


151 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


unison with his nose, and, hurling an anathema at 
him, followed his daughter, probably to incarcerate 
her in her apartments. 

All was over, and I returned to Jone with a heavy 
heart and faltering step. I could not but feel that I 
had brought about the sad end of this tender chapter 
in the lives of Pomeroy and Angelica. If I had let 
them alone, they would not have met, and they would 
not have been discovered together. I didn’t tell Jone 
what had happened, because he does not always sym- 
pathize with me in my interest in others, and for 
hours my heart was heavy. 

It was about a half an hour before dinner, that day, 
when I thought that a little walk might raise my spirits, 
and I wandered into the gardens, for which we each 
have a weekly ticket, and there, to my amazement, 
not far from the gate, I saw Angelica in tears and her 
bath-chair. Her man was not with her, and she was 
alone. When she saw me, she looked at me for a min- 
ute, and then she beckoned to me to come to her. I 
flew. There were but few people in the gardens, and 
we was alone. 

“Madam,” said she, “I think you must be very kind. 
I believe you knew that gentleman was not my 
brother. He is not.” 

“My dear miss,” said I,— I was almost on the point 
of calling her Angelica,— “I knew that. I know that 
he is something nearer and dearer than even a 
brother.” 

She blushed. “Yes,” said she, “you are right, and 
we are in great trouble.” 

“Oh, what is it? Tell me quick. What can I do 
to help you?” 


152 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


“My father is very angry/ 7 said she, “and has for- 
bidden me ever to see him again, and he is going to 
take me home to-morrow. But we have agreed to fly 
together to-day. It is onr only chance. But he is not 
here. Oh, dear ! I do not know what I shall do. 77 

“Where are you going to fly to? 77 said I. 

“We want to take the Edinburgh train this even- 
ing, if there is one, 77 she said, “and we get off at Car- 
lisle, and from there it is only a little way to Gretna 
Green. 77 

“Gretna Green! 77 I cried. “Oh, I will help you! 
I will help you ! Why isn 7 t the gentleman here, and 
where has he gone ? 77 

“He has gone to see about the trains, 77 she said, al- 
most crying, “and I don 7 t see what keeps him. I 
could not get away until father went into his room to 
dress for dinner, and as soon as he is ready he will 
call for me. Where can he be ? I have sent my man 
to look for him. 77 

“Oh, I’ll go look for him ! You wait here, 77 1 cried, 
forgetting that she would have to, and away I went. 

As I was hurrying out of the gates of the gardens, I 
looked in the direction of the railroad station, and 
there I saw Pomeroy pulled by one bath-chairman, 
and the other one talking to him. In twenty bounds 
I reached him. “Go back for your young lady, 77 I 
cried to Robertson, Angelica’s man, “and bring her 
here on the run. She sent me for you.” Away went 
Robertson, and then I said to the astonished Pomeroy : 
“Sir, there is no time for explanations. Your lady- 
love will be with you in a minute. My husband and 
I are going to Edinburgh to-morrow, and I have 
looked up all the trains. There is one which leaves 
153 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


here at twenty minutes past six. If she comes soon, 
you will have time to catch it. Have you your bag- 
gage ready ? ” 

He looked at me as if he wondered who on earth I 
was, but I am sure he saw my soul in my face, and 
trusted me. 

“Yes,” he said, “she has a little bag in her bath- 
chair, and mine is here.” 

“Here she comes,” said I, “and you must fly to the 
station.” 

In a moment Angelica was with us, her face beam- 
ing with delight. 

“Oh, thank you, thank you ! ” she cried, but I 
would not listen to her gratitude. “Hurry ! ” I said, 
“or you will be too late. Joy go with you ! ” 

They hastened off, and I walked back to the gar- 
dens. I looked at my watch, and, to my horror, I saw 
it was five minutes past six. Fifteen minutes left yet 
— fifteen minutes in which they might be overtaken. 
I stopped for a moment irresolutely. What should I 
do ? I thought of running after them to the station. 
I thought in some way I might help them— buy their 
tickets, or do something. But while I was thinking, I 
heard a rattle, and down the street came the man in 
livery, and Snortfrizzle’s bottle-nose like a volcano 
behind him. The minute they reached me, and there 
was nobody else in the street, the old man shouted, 
“Hi ! Have you seen two bath-chairs with a young 
man and a young woman in them ? ” 

I was on the point of saying no, but changed my 
mind like a flash. “Did the young lady wear a hat 
with blue ribbons?” I asked. 

“Yes ! ” he roared. “Which way did they go? ” 

154 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


“And did the young man with her wear eye-glasses 
and a brown mustache f ” 

“With her, was he?” screamed Snortfrizzle. 
“That’s the rascal. Which way did they go? Tell 
me instantly.” 

When I was a very little girl I knew an old woman 
who told me that if a person was really good at heart, 
the holy angels would allow that person, in the course 
of her life, twelve fibs without charge, provided they 
was told for the good of somebody, and not to do harm. 
Now, at such a moment as this I could not remember 
how many fibs of that kind I had left over to my 
credit, but I knew there must be at least one, and so 
I didn’t hesitate a second. “They have gone to the 
Cat and Fiddle,” said I. “I heard them tell their 
bath-chairmen so, as they urged them forward at the 
top of their speed. They stopped for a second here, 
sir, and I heard the gentleman send a cabman for a 
clergyman, post-haste, to meet them at the Cat and 
Fiddle.” 

If the sky had been lighted up by the eruption of 
Snortfrizzle’s nose, I should not have been surprised. 

“The fools ! They can’t ! Cat and Fiddle ! But 
they can’t be half-way there. Martin, to the Cat and 
Fiddle!” 

The man touched his hat. “But I couldn’t do that, 
sir. I couldn’t run to the Cat and Fiddle. It’s long 
miles, sir. Shall I get a carriage ? ” 

“Carriage ! ” cried the old man, and then he began 
to look about him. 

Horror struck me. Perhaps they would go to the 
station for one ! Just then a boy driving a pony and 
a grocery cart came up. 


155 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


“ There you are, sir / 7 I cried. “Hire that boy to 
tow you. Your butler can sit in the back of the cart 
and hold the handle of your bath-chair. It may take 
long to get a carriage, and the cart will go much 
faster. You may overtake them in a mile . 77 

Old Snortfrizzle never so much as thanked me or 
looked at me. He yelled to the boy in the cart, 
offered him ten shillings and sixpence to give him a 
tow, and in less time than I could take to write it, 
that flunky with a high hat was sitting in the tail of 
the cart, the pony was going at full gallop, and the 
old man’s bath-chair was spinning on behind it at a 
great rate. 

I did not leave that spot— standing statue-like and 
looking along both roads— until I heard the rumble 
of the departing train, and then I repaired to the Old 
Hall, my soul uplifted. I found Jone in an awful 
fluster about my being out so late. But I do stay 
pretty late sometimes when I walk by myself, and so 
he hadn’t anything new to say. 


156 


LETTER NUMBER TWENTY 

Edinburgh. 

We have been here five or six days now, but the first 
thing I must write is the rest of the story of the 
lovers. We left Buxton the next day after their 
flight, and I begged Jone to stop at Carlisle and let 
us make a little trip to Gretna Green. I wanted to 
see the place that has been such a well-spring of mat- 
rimonial joys, and, besides, I thought we might find 
Pomeroy and Angelica still there. 

I had not seen old Snortfrizzle again, but late that 
night I had heard a row in the hotel, and I expect it 
was him back from the Cat and Fiddle. Whether he 
was inquiring for me or not, I don’t know, or what he 
was doing, or what he did. 

Jone thought I had done a good deal of meddling 
in other people’s business, but he agreed to go to 
Gretna Green, and we got there in the afternoon. I 
left Jone to take a smoke at the station, because I 
thought this was a business it would be better for me 
to attend to myself, and I started off to look up the 
village blacksmith and ask him if he had lately 
wedded a pair. But— will you believe it, madam ?— I 
had not gone far on the main road of the village 
when, a little ahead of me, I saw two bath-chairs 
157 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


coming toward me, one of them pulled by Robertson, 
and the other by Pomeroy’s man, and in these two 
chairs was the happy lovers, evidently Mr. and Mrs. ! 
Their faces was filled with light enough to take a 
photograph, and I could almost see their hearts swel- 
ling with transcendent joy. I hastened toward them, 
and in an instant our hands was clasped as if we had 
been old friends. 

They told me their tale. They had reached the 
station in plenty of time, and Robertson had got a 
carriage for them, and he and the other man had gone 
with them third-class, with the bath-chairs in the 
goods carriages. They had reached Gretna Green 
that morning, and had been married two hours. 
Then I told my tale. The eyes of both of them was 
dimmed with tears, hers the most, and again they 
clasped my hands. “Poor father ! ” said Angelica, “I 
hope he didn’t go all the way to the Cat and Fiddle, 
and that the night air didn’t strike into his joints. 
But he cannot separate us now.” And she looked 
confiding at the other bath-chair. 

“What are you going to do? ” said I, and they said 
they had just been making plans. I saw, though, 
that their minds was in too exalted a state to do this 
properly for themselves, and so I reflected a minute. 
“How long have you been in Buxton? ” 

“I have been there two weeks and two days,” said 
she, “and my husband oh, the effulgence that filled 
her countenance as she said this !— “has been there one 
day longer.” 

“Then,” said I, “my advice to you is to go back to 
Buxton, and stay there five days, until you both have 
taken the waters and the baths for the full three 


158 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


weeks. It won’t be much to bear the old gentleman’s 
upbraiding for five days, and then, blessed with 
health and love, you can depart. No matter what 
you do afterwards, I’d stick it out at Buxton for five 
days.” 

u We’ll do it,” said they, and then, after more 
gratitude and congratulations, we parted. 

And now I must tell you about ourselves. When 
Jone had been three weeks at Buxton, and done all 
the things he ought to do, and hadn’t done anything 
he oughtn’t to do, he hadn’t any more rheumatism in 
him than a squirrel that jumps from bough to bough. 
But— will you believe it, madam?— I had such a rheu- 
matism in one side and one arm that it made me give 
little squeaks when I did up my back hair, and it all 
came from my taking the baths when there wasn’t 
anything the matter with me. For I found out, but all 
too late, that while the waters of Buxton will cure 
rheumatism in people that’s got it, they will bring it 
out in people who never had it at all. We was told 
that we ought not to do anything in the bathing line 
without the advice of a doctor. But those little tanks 
in the floors of the bath-rooms, all lined with tiles, and 
filled with warm, transparent water, that you went 
down into by marble steps, did seem so innocent that 
I didn’t believe there was no need in asking questions 
about them. Jone wanted me to stay three weeks 
longer, until I was cured, but I wouldn’t listen to that. 
I was wild to get to Scotland, and as my rheumatism 
did not hinder me from walking, I didn’t mind what 
else it did. 

And there is another thing I must tell you. One 
day, when I was sitting by myself on the Slopes, wait- 
159 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


ing for Jone, about lunch-time, and with a reminis- 
cence floating through my mind of the Devonshire 
clotted cream of the past, never perhaps to return, I 
saw an elderly woman coming along, and when she 
got near she stopped and spoke. I knew her in an 
instant. She was the old body we met at the Babylon 
Hotel, who told us about the cottage at Chedcombe. 
I asked her to sit down beside me and talk, because I 
wanted to tell her what good times we had had, and 
how we liked the place, but she said she couldn’t, as 
she was obliged to go on. 

“And did you like Chedcombe!” said she. “I 
hope you and your husband kept well.” 

I said yes, except Jone’s rheumatism, we felt splen- 
did,— for my aches hadn’t come on then,— and I was 
going on to gush about the lovely country she had sent 
us to, but she didn’t seem to want to listen. 

“Really,” said she, “and your husband had the 
rheumatism. It was a wise thing for you to come 
here. We English people have reason to be proud of 
our country. If we have our banes, we also have our 
antidotes, and it isn’t every country that can say 
that, is it!” 

I wanted to speak up for America, and tried to 
think of some good antidote with the proper banes 
attached, but before I could do it she gave her 
head a little wag, and said, “Good morning— nice 
weather, isn’t it!” and wabbled away. It struck me 
that the old body was a little lofty, and just then Mr. 
Poplington, who I hadn’t noticed, came up. 

“Really,” said he, “I didn’t know you was ac- 
quainted with the countess.” 

“The which!” said I. 


160 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


“The Countess of Mussleby,” said he, “that you was 
just talking to.” 

“Countess ! ” I cried. “Why, that’s the old person 
who recommended us to go to Chedcombe.” 

“Very natural,” said he, “for her to do that, for 
her estates lie south of Chedcombe, and she takes a 
great interest in the villages round about, and knows 
all the houses to let.” 

I parted from him, and wandered away, a sadness 
stealing o’er my soul. Gone with the recollections of 
the clotted cream was my visions of diamond tiaras, 
tossing plumes, and long folds of brocades and laces 
sweeping the marble floors of palaces. If ever again 
I read a novel with a countess in it, I shall see the 
edge of a yellow flannel petticoat and a pair of shoes 
like two horsehair bags, which was the last that I 
saw of this thunderbolt into the middle of my visions 
of aristocracy. 

Jone and me got to like Buxton very much. We 
met many pleasant people, and as most of them had a 
chord in common, we was friendly enough. Jone said 
it made him feel sad in the smoking-room to see the 
men he’d got acquainted with get well and go home, 
but that’s a kind of sadness that all parties can bear 
up under pretty well. 

I haven’t said a word yet about Scotland, though 
we have been here a week, but I really must get 
something about it into this letter. I was saying to 
Jone the other day that if I was to meet a king with 
a crown on his head, I am not sure that I should know 
that king if I saw him again, so taken up would I be 
with looking at his crown, especially if it had jewels 
in it such as I saw in the regalia at the Tower of 
161 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


London. Now, Edinburgh seems to strike me in very 
much the same way. Prince Street is its crown, and 
whenever I think of this city it will be of this mag- 
nificent street and the things that can be seen from it. 

It is a great thing for a street to have one side of it 
taken away and sunk out of sight, so that there is a 
clear view far and wide, and visitors can stand and 
look at nearly everything that is worth seeing in the 
whole town, as if they was in the front seats of the 
balcony in a theatre, and looking on the stage. You 
know I am very fond of the theatre, madam, but I 
never saw anything in the way of what they call spec- 
tacular representation that came near Edinburgh as 
seen from Prince Street. 

But as I said in one of my first letters, I am not go- 
ing to write about things and places that you can get 
much better description of in books, and so I won’t 
take up any time in telling how we stand at the win- 
dow of our room at the Royal Hotel, and look out at 
the Old Town standing like a forest of tall houses on 
the other side of the valley, with the great castle 
perched up high above them, and all the hills and 
towers and the streets all spread out below us, with 
Scott’s monument right in front, with everybody he 
ever wrote about standing on brackets which stick 
out everywhere, from the bottom up to the very top 
of the monument, which is higher than the tallest house, 
and looks like a steeple without a church to it. It is 
the most beautiful thing of the kind I ever saw, and I 
have made out, or think I have, nearly every one of 
the figures that’s carved on it. 

I think I shall like the Scotch people very much, 
but just now there is one thing about them that 
162 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


stands up as high above their other good points as the 
castle does above the rest of the city, and that is the 
feeling they have for anybody who has done anything 
to make his fellow-countrymen proud of him. A 
famous Scotchman cannot die without being pretty 
promptly born again in stone or bronze, and put in 
some open place with seats convenient for people to 
sit and look at him. I like this. Glory ought to begin 
at home. 


163 


LETTER NUMBER TWENTY-ONE 


Edinburgh. 

Jone being just as lively on his legs as he ever was in 
his life, thanks to the waters of Buxton, and I having 
the rheumatism now only in my arm, which I don’t 
need to walk with, we have gone pretty much all 
over Edinburgh, and a great place it is to walk in, so 
far as variety goes. Some of the streets are so steep 
you have to go up steps if you are walking, and 
about a mile around if you are driving. I never get 
tired wandering about the Old Town, with its narrow 
streets and awfully tall houses, with family washes 
hanging out from every story. 

The closes are queer places. They are very like 
little villages set into the town, as if they was raisins 
in a pudding. You get to them by alleys or tunnels, 
and when you are inside you find a little neighbor- 
hood that hasn’t anything more to do with the next 
close, a block away, than one country village has with 
another. 

We went to see John Knox’s house, and although 
Mr. Knox was pretty hard on vanities and frivolities, 
he didn’t mind having a good house over his head, 
with woodwork on the walls and ceilings that wasn’t 
any more necessary than the back buttons on his coat. 

164 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 

We have been reading hard since we have oeen in 
Edinburgh, and whenever Mr. Knox and Mary Queen 
of Scots come together, I take Mary’s side without 
asking questions. I have no doubt Mr. Knox was a 
good man, but if meddling in other people’s business 
gave a person the right to have a monument, the top 
of his would be the first thing travellers would see 
when they come near Edinburgh. 

When we went to Holyrood Palace, it struck me 
that Mary Queen of Scots deserved a better house. 
Of course, it wasn’t built for her, but I don’t care 
very much for the other people who lived in it. The 
rooms are good enough for an ordinary household’s 
use, although the little room that she had her supper- 
party in when ftizzio was killed wouldn’t be consid- 
ered by Jone and me as anything like big enough for 
our family to eat in. But there is a general air 
about the place as if it belonged to a royal family that 
was not very well off, and had to abstain from a good 
deal of grandeur. 

If Mary Queen of Scots could come to life again, I 
expect the Scotch people would give her the best pal- 
ace that money could buy, for they have grown to 
think the world of her, and her pictures blossom out 
all over Edinburgh like daisies in a pasture -field. 

The first morning after we got here, I was as much 
surprised as if I had met Mary Queen of Scots walk- 
ing along Prince Street with a parasol over her head. 
We were sitting in the reading-room of the hotel, and 
on the other side of the room was a long desk at which 
people were sitting, writing letters, all with their 
backs to us. One of these was a young man wearing 
a nice, light-colored sack-coat, with a shiny white col- 
165 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


lar sticking above it, and his black derby hat was on 
the desk beside him. When he had finished his letter 
he put a stamp on it and got up to mail it. I hap- 
pened to be looking at him, and I believe I stopped 
breathing as I sat and stared. Under his coat he had 
on a little skirt of green plaid about big enough for 
my Corinne when she was about five years old, and 
then he didn’t wear anything whatever until you got 
down to his long stockings and low shoes. I was so 
struck with the feeling that he was an absent-minded 
person that I pinched Jone, and whispered to him to 
go quick and tell him. Jone looked at him and 
laughed, and said that was the Highland costume. 

Now, if that man had had his martial plaid wrapped 
around him, and had worn a Scottish cap with a 
feather in it and a long ribbon hanging down his back, 
with his claymore girded to his side, I wouldn’t have 
been surprised, for this is Scotland, and that would 
have been like the pictures I have seen of High- 
landers. But to see a man with the upper half of 
him dressed like a clerk in a dry-goods store, and the 
lower half like a Highland chief, was enough to make 
a stranger gasp. 

But since then I have seen a good many young men 
dressed that way. I believe it is considered the tip 
of the fashion. I haven’t seen any of the bare-legged 
dandies yet with a high silk hat and an umbrella, 
but I expect it won’t be long before I meet one. We 
often see the Highland soldiers that belong to the 
garrison at the castle, and they look mighty fine with 
their plaid shawls and their scarfs and their feathers. 
But to see a man who looks as if one half of him be- 
longed to London Bridge, and the other half to the 
166 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 

Highland moors, does look to me like a pretty had 
mixture. 

I am not so sure, either, that the whole Highland 
dress isn’t better suited to Egypt, where it doesn’t 
often rain, than to Scotland. Last Saturday we was 
at St. Giles’s Church, and the man who took us around 
told us we ought to come early next morning and see 
the military service, which was something very fine, 
and as Jone gave him a shilling, he said he would be 
on hand and watch for us, and give us a good place 
where we could see the soldiers come in. On Sunday 
morning it rained hard, but we was both at the church 
before eight o’clock, and so was a good many other 
people, but the doors was shut, and they wouldn’t let 
us in. They told us it was such a bad morning that 
the soldiers could not come out, and so there would 
be no military service that day. I don’t know 
whether those fine fellows thought that the colors 
would run out of their beautiful plaids, or whether 
they would get; rheumatism in their knees, but it did 
seem to me pretty hard that soldiers could not come 
out in the weather that lots of common citizens didn’t 
seem to mind at all. I was a good deal put out, for I 
hate to get up early for nothing, but there was no use 
saying anything, and all we could do was to go home, 
as all the other people with full suits of clothes did. 

Jone and I have got so much more to see before we 
go home that it is very well we are both able to skip 
around lively. Of course, there are ever and ever so 
many places that we want to go to, but can’t do it, 
but I am bound to see the Highlands and the country 
of “The Lady of the Lake.” We have been reading 
up Walter Scott, and I think more than I ever did 
167 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


that he is perfectly splendid. While we was in Edin- 
burgh we felt bound to go and see Melrose Abbey and 
Abbotsford. I shall not say much about these two 
places, but I will say that to go into Sir Walter Scott’s 
library, and sit in the old arm-chair he used to sit in 
at the desk he used to write on, and see his books and 
things around me, gave me more a feeling of rever- 
entialism than I have had in any cathedral yet. 

As for Melrose Abbey, I could have walked about 
under those towering walls and lovely arches until 
the stars peeped out from the lofty vaults above. 
But Jone and the man who drove the carriage were 
of a different way of thinking, and we left all too soon. 
But one thing I did do : I went to the grave of Mi- 
chael Scot, the wizard, where once was shut up the 
book of awful mysteries, with a lamp always burning 
by it, though the flagstone was shut down tight on 
top of it, and I got a piece of moss and a weed. We 
don’t do much in the way of carrying off such things, 
but I want Corinne to read “The Lady of the Lake,” 
and then I shall give her that moss and that weed, 
and tell where I got them. I believe that, in the way 
of romantics, Corinne is going to be more like me than 
like Jone. 

To-morrow we go to the Highlands, and we shall 
leave our two big trunks in the care of the man in 
the red coat who is commander-in-chief at the Boyal 
Hotel, and who said he would take as much care of 
them as if they was two glass jars filled with rubies, 
and we believed him, for he has done nothing but take 
care of us since we came to Edinburgh, and good 
care, too. 


168 


LETTER NUMBER TWENTY-TWO 

Kinloch Rannoch. 

It happened that the day we went north was a very 
fine one, and as soon as we got into the real Highland 
country there was nothing to hinder me from feeling 
that my feet was on my native heath, except that I 
was in a railway carriage, and that I had no Scotch 
blood in me, but the joy of my soul was all the same. 
There was an old gentleman got into our carriage at 
Perth, and when he saw how we was taking in every- 
thing our eyes could reach, for Jone is a good deal 
more fired up by travel than he used to be,— I expect 
it must have been the Buxton waters that made the 
change,— he began to tell us all about the places we 
was passing through. There didn’t seem to be a 
rock or a stream that hadn’t a bit of history to it for 
that old gentleman to tell us about. 

We got out at a little town called Strowan, and then 
we took a carriage and drove across the wild moors 
and hills for thirteen miles till we came to this village 
at the end of Loch Rannoch. The wind blew strong 
and sharp, but we knew what we had to expect, and 
had warm clothes on. And with the cool breeze, and 
remembering “ Scots wha ha’ wi’ Wallace bled,” it 
made my blood tingle all the way. 

169 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


We are going to stay here at least a week. We 
shall not try to do everything that can be done on 
Scottish soil, for we shall not stalk stags or shoot 
grouse j and I have told Jone that he may put on as 
many Scotch bonnets and plaids as he likes, but there is 
one thing he is not going to do, and that is to go bare- 
kneed, to which he answered, he would never do that 
unless he could dip his knees into weak coffee so that 
they would be the same color as his face. 

There is a nice inn here with beautiful scenery all 
around, and the lovely Loch Eannoch stretches away 
for eleven miles. Everything is just as Scotch as it 
can be. Even the English people who come here put 
on knickerbockers and bonnets. I have never been 
anywhere else where it is considered the correct thing 
to dress like the natives, and I will say here that it is 
very few of the natives that wear kilts. That sort of 
thing seems to be given up to the fancy Highlanders. 

Nearly all the talk at the inn is about shooting and 
fishing. Stag-hunting here is very different from 
what it is in England, in more ways than one. In 
the first place, stags are not hunted with horses and 
hounds. In the second place, the sport is not free. 
A gentleman here told Jone that if a man wanted to 
shoot a stag on these moors it would cost him one 
rifle-cartridge and six five-pound notes. And when 
Jone did not understand what that meant, the man 
went on and told him about how the deer-stalking 
was carried on here. He said that some of the big 
proprietors up here owned as much as ninety thou- 
sand acres of moorland, and they let it out mostly to 
English people for hunting and fishing. And if it is 
stag-hunting the tenant wants, the price he pays is 
170 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


regulated by the number of stags he has the privilege 
of shooting. Each stag he is allowed to kill costs him 
thirty pounds. So, if he wants the pleasure of shoot- 
ing thirty stags in the season, his rent will be nine 
hundred pounds. This he pays for the stag-shooting, 
but some kind of a house and about ten thousand 
acres are thrown in, which he has a perfect right 
to sit down on and rest himself on, but he can’t 
shoot a grouse on it unless he pays extra for that. 
And, what is more, if he happens to be a bad shot, or 
breaks his leg and has to stay in the house, and doesn’t 
shoot his thirty stags, he has got to pay for them all 
the same. 

When Jone told me all this, I said I thought a hun- 
dred and fifty dollars a pretty high price to pay for 
the right to shoot one deer. But Jone said I didn’t 
consider all the rest the man got. In the first place, 
he had the right to get up very early in the morning, 
in the gloom and drizzle, and to trudge through the 
slop and the heather until he got far away from the 
neighborhood of any human being, and then he could 
go up on some high piece of ground and take a spy- 
glass and search the whole country round for a stag. 
When he saw one way off in the distance snuffing the 
morning air, or hunting for his breakfast among the 
heather, he had the privilege of walking two or three 
miles over the moor so as to get that stag between the 
wind and himself, so that it could not scent him or 
hear him. Then he had the glorious right to get his 
rifle all ready, and steal and creep toward that stag 
to cut short his existence. He has to be as careful 
and as sneaky as if he was a snake in the grass, going 
behind little hills and down into gullies, and some- 
171 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


times almost crawling on his stomach where he goes 
over an open place, and doing everything he can 
to keep that stag from knowing his end is near. 
Sometimes he follows his victim all day, and the sun 
goes down before he has the glorious right of standing 
up and lodging a bullet in its unsuspecting heart. 

“So, you see,” said Jone, “he gets a lot for his hun- 
dred and fifty dollars.” 

“They do get a good deal more for their money 
than I thought they did,” said I. “But I wonder if 
those rich sportsmen ever think that if they would 
take the money that they pay for shooting thirty or 
forty stags in one season, they might buy a rhi- 
noceros, which they could set up on a hill and shoot at 
every morning if they liked. A game animal like 
that would last them for years, and, if they ever felt 
like it, they could ask their friends to help them 
shoot, without costing them anything.” 

Jone is pretty hard on sport with killing in it. He 
does not mind eating meat, but he likes to have the 
butcher do the killing. But I reckon he is a little 
too tender-hearted. But, as for me, I like sport of 
some kinds, especially when you don’t have your pity 
or your sympathies awakened by seeing your prey 
enjoying life when you are seeking to encompass his 
end. Of course, by that I mean fishing. 

There are a good many trout in the lake, and peo- 
ple can hire the privilege of fishing for them, and I 
begged Jone to let me go out in a boat and fish. He 
was rather in favor of staying ashore and fishing in 
the little river, but I didn’t want to do that. I 
wanted to go out and have some regular lake fishing. 
At last Jone agreed, provided I would not expect him 
172 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


to have anything to do with the fishing. “Of course, 
I don’t expect anything like that,” said I, “and it 
would be a good deal better for you to stay on shore. 
The landlord says a gillie will go along to row the 
boat, and attend to the lines and rods, and all that, 
and so there won’t be any need for you at all, and 
you can stay on shore with your book, and watch if 
you like.” 

“And suppose you tumble overboard? ” said Jone. 

“Then you can swim out,” I said, “and perhaps 
wade a good deal of the way. I don’t suppose we 
need go far from the bank.” 

Jone laughed, and said he was going, too. 

“Very well,” said I, “but you have got to stay in 
the bow, with your back to me, and take an interest- 
ing book with you, for it is a long time since I have 
done any fishing, and I am not going to do it with 
two men watching me, and telling me how I ought to 
do it, and how I oughtn’t to. One will be enough.” 

“And that one won’t be me,” said Jone, “for fishing 
is not one of the branches I teach in my school.” 

I would have liked it better if Jone and me had 
gone alone, he doing nothing but row, but the land- 
lord wouldn’t let his boat that way, and said we must 
take a gillie, which, as far as I can make out, is a sort 
of sporting farm-hand. That is the way to do fishing 
in these parts. 

Well, we started, and Jone sat in the front, with 
his back to me, and the long-legged gillie rowed like 
a good fellow. When we got to a good place to fish, 
he stopped, and took a fishing-rod that was in pieces, 
and screwed them together, and fixed the line all right 
so that it would run along the rod to a little wheel 
173 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


near the handle, and then he put on a couple of hooks 
with artificial flies on them, which was so small I 
couldn’t imagine how the fish could see them. While 
he was doing all this I got a little fidgety, because I 
had never fished except with a straight pole and line 
with a cork to it, which would bob when the fish bit. 
But this was altogether a different sort of a thing. 
When it was all ready, he handed me the pole, and 
then sat down, very polite, to look at me. 

Now, if he had handed me the rod, and then taken 
another boat and gone home, perhaps I might have 
known what to do with the thing after a while, but I 
must say that at that minute I didn’t. I held the 
rod out over the water and let the flies dangle down 
into it, but, do what I would, they wouldn’t sink— 
there wasn’t weight enough on them. 

“You must throw your fly, madam,” said the gillie, 
always very polite. “Let me give it a throw for 
you.” And then he took the rod in his hand, and gave 
it a whirl and a switch which sent the flies out ever 
so far from the boat. Then he drew it along a little, so 
that the flies skipped over the top of the water. 

I didn’t say anything, and, taking the pole in both 
hands, I gave it a wild twirl over my head, and then 
it flew out as if I was trying to whip one of the 
leaders in a four -horse team. As I did this Jone gave 
a jump that took him pretty near out of the boat, for 
two flies swished just over the bridge of his nose, and 
so close to his eyes, as he was reading an interesting 
dialogue, and not thinking of fish, or even of me, that 
he gave a jump sideways, which, if it hadn’t been for 
the gillie grabbing him, would have taken him over- 
board. I was frightened myself, and said to him that 
174 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 

I had told him he ought not to come in the boat, and 
it would have been a good deal better for him to have 
stayed on shore. 

He didn’t say anything, but I noticed he turned up 
his collar and pulled down his hat over his eyes and 
ears. The gillie said that perhaps I had too much 
line out, and so he took the rod and wound up a good 
deal of the line. I liked this better, because it was 
easier to whip out the line and pull it in again. Of 
course, I would not be likely to catch fish so much 
nearer the boat, but then, we can’t have everything in 
this world. Once I thought I had a bite, and I gave 
the rod such a jerk that the line flew back against 
me, and when I was getting ready to throw it out 
again, I found that one of the little hooks had stuck 
fast in my thumb. I tried to take it out with the 
other hand, but it was awfully awkward to do, be- 
cause the rod wabbled and kept jerking on it. The 
gillie asked me if there was anything the matter with 
the flies, but I didn’t want him to know what had 
happened, and so I said, “Oh, no, ” and, turning my 
back on him, I tried my best to get the hook out with- 
out his helping me, for I didn’t want him to think 
that the first thing I caught was myself, after just miss- 
ing my husband— he might be afraid it would be his 
turn next. You cannot imagine how bothersome it 
is to go fishing with a gillie to wait on you. I would 
rather wash dishes with a sexton to wipe them and 
look for nicks on the edges. 

At last— and I don’t know how it happened— I did 
hook a fish, and the minute I felt him, I gave a jerk, 
and up he came. I heard the gillie say something 
about playing, but I was in no mood for play, and if 
175 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


that fish had been shot up out of the water by a sub- 
marine volcano it couldn’t have ascended any quicker 
than when I jerked it up. Then, as quick as lightning, 
it went whirling through the air, struck the pages of 
Jone’s book, turning over two or three of them, and 
then wiggled itself half-way down Jone’s neck, be- 
tween his skin and his collar, while the loose hook 
swung around and nipped him in his ear. 

“ Don’t pull, madam ! ” shouted the gillie, and it was 
well he did, for I was just on the point of giving an 
awful jerk to get the fish loose from Jone. Jone gave 
a grab at the fish, which was trying to get down his 
back, and, pulling him out, threw him down. But by 
doing this he jerked the other hook into his ear, and 
then a yell arose such as I never before heard from 
Jone. “I told you you ought not to come in this 
boat,” said I. “ You don’t like fishing, and something 
is always happening to you.” 

“Like fishing!” cried Jone. “I should say not.” 
And he made up such a comical face that even the 
gillie, who was very polite, had to laugh as he went 
to take the hook out of his ear. 

When Jone and the fish had been got off my line, 
Jone turned to me and said, “Are you going to fish 
any more?” 

“Not with you in the boat,” I answered, and then 
he said he was glad to hear that, and told the man he 
could row us ashore. 

I can assure you, madam, that fishing in a rather 
wabbly boat, with a husband and a gillie in it, is not 
to my taste, and that was the end of our sporting ex- 
periences in Scotland, but it did not end the glorious 
times we had by that lake and on the moors. 

176 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


We hired a little pony -trap, and drove up to the 
other end of the lake, and not far beyond that is the 
beginning of Rannoch Moor, which the books say is 
one of the wildest and most desolate places in all 
Europe. So far as we went over the moor, we found 
that this was truly so, and I know that I, at least, en- 
joyed it ever so much more because it was so wild 
and desolate. As far as we could see, the moors 
stretched away in every direction, covered in most 
places by heather, now out of blossom, but with great 
rocks standing out of the ground in some places, and 
here and there patches of grass. Sometimes we could 
see four or five lochs at once, some of them two or 
three miles long, and down through the middle of the 
moor came the maddest and most harum-scarum little 
river that could be imagined. It actually seemed to 
go out of its way to find rocks to jump over, just as if 
it was a young calf, and some of the waterfalls were 
beautiful. All around us was melancholy mountains, 
all of them with “Ben” for their first names, except 
Schiehallion, which was the best shaped of any of 
them, coming up to a point and standing by itself, 
which was what I used to think mountains always 
did. But now I know they run into each other, so 
that you can hardly tell where one ends and the other 
begins. 

For three or four days we went out on these moors, 
sometimes when the sun was shining, and sometimes 
when there was a heavy rain and the wind blew gales, 
and I think I liked this last kind of weather the best, 
for it gave me an idea of lonely desolation which I 
never had in any part of the world I have ever been 
in before. There is often not a house to be seen, not 
177 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


even a crofter’s hut, and we seldom met anybody. 
Sometimes I wandered off by myself behind a hillock 
or rocks, where I could not even see Jone, and then I 
used to try to imagine how Eve would have felt if she 
had early become a widow, and to put myself in her 
place. There was always clouds in the sky, sometimes 
dark and heavy ones coming down to the very peaks 
of the mountains, and not a tree was to be seen, ex- 
cept a few rowan-trees or -bushes close to the river. 
But by the side of Loch Rannoch, on our way back to 
the village, we passed along the edge of a fine old for- 
est called the “ Black Woods of Rannoch.” There 
are only three of these ancient forests left in Scotland, 
and some of the trees in this one are said to be eight 
hundred years old. 

The last time we were out on the Rannoch Moor 
there was such a savage and driving wind, and the 
rain came down in such torrents, that my mackin- 
tosh was blown nearly off of me, and I was wet from 
my head to my heels. But I would have stayed out 
hours longer if Jone had been willing, and I never 
felt so sorry to leave these Grampian Hills, where I 
would have been glad to have had my father feed his 
flocks, and where I might have wandered away my 
childhood, barefooted over the heather, singing Scotch 
songs and drinking in deep draughts of the pure 
mountain air, instead of— but no matter. 

To-morrow we leave the Highlands, but as we go to 
follow the shallop of u The Lady of the Lake,” I should 
not repine. 


178 


LETTER NUMBER TWENTY-THREE 


Oban, Scotland. 

It would seem to be the easiest thing in the world, 
when looking on the map, to go across the country 
from Loch Rannoch over to Katrine and all those 
celebrated parts, but we found we could not go that 
way, and so we went back to Edinburgh and made a 
fresh start. We stopped one night at the Royal 
Hotel, and there we found a letter from Mr. Popling- 
ton. We had left him at Buxton, and he said he was 
not going to Scotland this season, but would try to see 
us in London before we sailed. 

He is a good man, and he wrote this letter on pur- 
pose to tell me that he had had a letter from his 
friend, the clergyman in Somersetshire, who had for- 
bidden the young woman whose wash my tricycle had 
run into to marry her lover, because he was a Radical. 
This letter was in answer to one Mr. Poplington wrote 
to him, in which he gave the minister my reasons for 
thinking that the best way to convert the young man 
from Radicalism was to let him marry the young 
woman, who would be sure to bring him around to her 
way of thinking, whatever that might be. 

I didn’t care about the Radicalism. All I wanted 
was to get the two married, and then it would not 
179 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


make the least difference to me what their politics 
might be. If they lived properly, and was sober and 
industrious, and kept on loving each other, I didn’t 
believe it would make much difference to them. It 
was a long letter that the clergyman wrote, but the 
point of it was that he had concluded to tell the 
young woman that she might marry the fellow if she 
liked, and that she must do her best to make him a 
good Conservative, which, of course, she promised to 
do. When I read this I clapped my hands, for who 
could have suspected that I should have the good 
luck to come to this country to spend the summer and 
make two matches before I left it ! 

When we left Edinburgh to gradually wend our 
way to this place, which is on the west coast of Scot- 
land, the first town we stopped at was Stirling, where 
the Scotch kings used to live. Of course, we went to 
the castle, which stands on the rocks high above the 
town, but before we started to go there, Jone inquired 
if the place was a ruin or not, and when he was told 
it was not, and that soldiers lived there, he said it 
was all right, and we went. He now says he must 
positively decline to visit any more houses out of re- 
pair. He is tired of them. And since he has got 
over his rheumatism, he feels less like visiting ruins 
than he ever did. I tell him the ruins are not any 
more likely to be damp than a good many of the 
houses that people live in. But this didn’t shake 
him, and I suppose, if we come to any more vine-cov- 
ered and shattered remnants of antiquity, I shall be 
obliged to go over them by myself. 

The castle is a great place, which I wouldn’t have 
missed for the world. But the spot that stirred my 
180 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 

soul the most was in a little garden, as high in the air 
as the top of a steeple, where we could look out oyer 
the battle-field of Bannockburn. Besides this, we 
could see the mountains of Ben Lomond, Ben Venue, 
Ben A’an, Ben Ledi, and ever so much Scottish land- 
scape spreading out for miles upon miles. There is a 
little hole in the wall here called the Ladies’ Look- 
out, where the ladies of the court could sit and see 
what was going on in the country below, without be- 
ing seen themselves, but I stood up and took in every- 
thing over the top of the wall. 

I don’t know whether I told you that the moun- 
tains of Scotland are “Bens,” and the mouths of rivers 
are “abers,” and islands are “inches.” Walking about 
the streets of Stirling, — and I didn’t have time to see 
half as much as I wanted to,— I came to the shop of a 
“flesher.” I didn’t know what it was until I looked 
into the window and saw that it was a butcher-shop. 

I like a language just about as foreign as the Scotch 
is. There are a good many words in it that people 
not Scotch don’t understand, but that gives a person 
the feeling that she is travelling abroad, which I want 
to have when I am abroad. Then, on the other hand, 
there are not enough of them to hinder a traveller 
from making herself understood. So it is natural for 
me to like it ever so much better than French, in 
which, when I am in it, I simply sink to the bottom 
if no helping hand is held out to me. 

I had some trouble with Jone that night at the 
hotel, because he had a novel which he had been 
reading for I don’t know how long, and which he said 
he wanted to get through with before he began any- 
thing else. But now I told him he was going to enter 
181 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


on the wonderful country of “The Lady of the Lake,” 
and that he ought to give up everything else and 
read that book, because, if he didn’t go there with his 
mind prepared, the scenery would not sink into his 
soul as it ought to. He was of the opinion that when 
my romantic feeling got on top of the scenery it would 
be likely to sink into his soul as deep as he cared to 
have it, without any preparation, but that sort of talk 
wouldn’t do for me. I didn’t want to be gliding o’er 
the smooth waters of Loch Katrine, and have him 
asking me who the girl was who rowed her shallop 
to the silver strand, and the end of it was that I made 
him sit up until a quarter of two o’clock in the morn- 
ing while I read “The Lady of the Lake” to him. I 
had read it before, and he had not, but I hadn’t got a 
quarter through before he was just as willing to listen 
as I was to read. And when I got through I was in 
such a glow that Jone said he believed that all the 
blood in my veins had turned to hot Scotch. 

I didn’t pay any attention to this, and after going 
to the window and looking out at the Gaelic moon, 
which was about half full, and rolling along among the 
clouds, I turned to Jone and said, “Jone, let’s sing 
1 Scots wha ha’,’ before we go to bed.” 

“If we do roar out that thing,” said Jone, “they 
will put us out on the curbstone to spend the rest of 
the night.” 

“Let’s whisper it, then,” said I. “The spirit of it is 
all I want. I don’t care for the loudness.” 

“I’d be willing to do that,” said Jone, “if I knew 
the tune and a few of the words.” 

“Oh, bother ! ” said I. And when I got into bed, I 
drew the clothes over my head and sang that brave 
182 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


song all to myself. Doing it that way, the words and 
tune didn’t matter at all, but I felt the spirit of it, 
and that was all I wanted, and then I went to sleep. 

The next morning we went to Callander by train, 
and there we took a coach for Trossachs. It is hardly 
worth while to say we went on top, because the 
coaches here haven’t any inside to them, except a 
hole where they put the baggage. We drove along a 
beautiful road with mountains and vales and streams, 
and the driver told us the name of everything that 
had a name, which he couldn’t help very well, being 
asked so constant by me. But I didn’t feel altogether 
satisfied, for we hadn’t come to anything quotable, 
and I didn’t like to have Jone sit too long without 
something happening to stir up some of “The Lady 
of the Lake ” which I had pumped into his mind the 
night before, and so keep it fresh. 

Before long, however, the driver pointed out the 
ford of Coilantogle. The instant he said this, I half 
jumped up, and, seizing Jone by the arm, I cried : 
“Don’t you remember? This is the place where the 
Knight of Snowdoun, James Fitzjames, fought Rod- 
erick Dhu ! ” And then, without caring who else 
heard me, I burst out with : 

“ ‘ His back against a rock he bore, 

And firmly placed his foot before; 

4 4 Come one, come all ! This rock shall fly 
From its firm base as soon as I.” ’ ” 

“No, madam,” said the driver, politely touching his 
hat, “that was a mile farther on. This place is : 

44 4 And here his course the chieftain stayed, 

Threw down his target and his plaid.’ ” 

183 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


“You are right / 7 said I. And then I began again : 

“ ‘ Then each at once his falchion drew, 

Each on the ground his scabbard threw, 

Each look’d to sun, and stream, and plain, 

As what they ne’er might see again; 

Then foot, and point, and eye opposed, 

In dubious strife they darkly closed.’ ” 

I didn’t repeat any more of the poem, though every- 
body was listening quite respectful, without thinking 
of laughing, and as for Jone, I could see by the way 
he sat and looked about him that his tinder had 
caught my spark. But I knew that the thing for me 
to do here was not to give out, but take in, and so, to 
speak in figures, I drank in the whole of Lake Ven- 
nachar as we drove along its lovely marge until we 
came to the other end, and the driver said we would 
now go over the Brigg of Turk. At this up I jumped 
and said : 

‘ ‘ ‘ And when the Brigg of Turk was won, 

The headmost horseman rode alone.’ ” 

I had sense enough not to quote the next two lines, 
because, when I had read them to Jone, he said that it 
was a shame to use a horse that way. 

We now came to Loch Achray, at the other end of 
which is the Trossachs, where we stopped for the 
night, and when the driver told me the mountain we 
saw before us was Ben Venue, I repeated the lines : 

“ ‘ The hunter marked that mountain high, 

The lone lake’s western boundary, 

And deem’d the stag must turn to bay, 

Where that huge rampart barr’d the way.’ ” 

At last we reached the Trossachs Hotel, which 
stands near the wild ravines filled with bristling 
184 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


woods where the stag was lost, with the lovely lake in 
front and Ben Venue towering up on the other side. 
I was so excited I could scarcely eat, and no wonder, 
because for the greater part of the day I had breathed 
nothing but the spirit of Scott’s poetry. I forgot to 
say that from the time we left Callander until we got 
to the hotel the rain poured down steadily, but that 
didn’t make any difference to me. A human being 
soaked with “The Lady of the Lake” is rain-proof. 


185 


LETTER NUMBER TWENTY-FOUR' 


Edinburgh. 

I was sorry to stop my last letter right in the middle 
of “The Lady of the Lake” country, but I couldn’t 
get it all in, and the fact is, I can’t get all I want to 
say in any kind of a letter. The things I have seen 
and want to write about are crowded together like 
the Scottish mountains. 

On the day after we got to Trossachs Hotel, — and I 
don’t know any place I would rather spend weeks at 
than there,— Jone and I walked through the “dark- 
some glen ” where the stag, 

<ft Soon lost to hound and hunter’s ken, 

In the deep Trossachs’ wildest nook 
His solitary refuge took.” 

And then we came out on the far-famed Loch Ka- 
trine. There was a little steamboat there to take pas- 
sengers to the other end, where a coach was waiting, 
but it wasn’t time for that to start, and we wandered 
on the banks of that song-gilded piece of water. It 
didn’t lie before us like “one burnished sheet of liv- 
ing gold,” as it appeared to James Fitzjames, but my 
soul could supply the sunset if I chose. There, too, 
was the island of the fair Ellen, and beneath our very 
feet was the “silver strand” to which she rowed her 


186 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


shallop. I am sorry to say there isn’t so much of the 
silver strand as there used to be, because, in this 
world, as I have read, and as I have seen, the spirit 
of realistics is always crowding and trampling on the 
toes of the romantics, and the people of Glasgow have 
actually laid water-pipes from their town to this lovely 
lake, and now they turn the faucets in their back 
kitchens, and out spouts the tide which kissed 

“ With whispering sound and slow 
The beach of pebbles bright as snow.” 

This wouldn’t have been so bad, because the lake 
has enough and to spare of its limpid wave j but in 
order to make their waterworks the Glasgow people 
built a dam, and that has raised the lake a good deal 
higher, so that it overflows ever so much of the silver 
strand. But I can pick out the real from a scene like 
that as I can pick out and throw away the seeds of an 
orange, and, gazing o’er that enchanted scene, I felt 
like the Knight of Snowdoun himself, when he first 
beheld the lake and said : 

“ How blithely might the bugle horn 

Chide, on the lake, the lingering mom! ” 

And then I went on with the lines until I came to 

“ Blithe were it then to wander here! 

But now— beshrew yon nimble deer” — 

“You’d better beshrew that steamboat bell,” said 
Jone, and away we went and just caught the boat. 
Bealistics come in very well sometimes when they 
take the form of legs. 

The steamboat took us over nearly the whole of 
Lake Katrine, and I must say that I was so busy fit- 
187 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


ting verses to scenery that I don’t remember whether 
it rained or the sun shone. When we left the boat 
we took a coach to Inversnaid on Loch Lomond, and, 
as we rode along, it made my heart almost sink to 
feel that I had to leave my poetry behind me, for I 
didn’t know any that suited this region. But when 
we got in sight of Loch Lomond, a Scotch girl who 
was on the seat behind me, and had several friends 
with her, began to sing a song about Lomond, of 
which I only remember, “You take the high road and 
I’ll take the low road, and I’ll get to Scotland afore 
you.” 

I am sure I must have Scotch blood in me, for when 
I heard that song it wound up my feelings to such a 
pitch that I believe if that girl had been near enough 
I should have given her a hug and a kiss. As for 
Jone, he seemed to be nearly as much touched as I 
was, though not in the same way, of course. 

We took a boat on Loch Lomond to Ardlui, an- 
other little town, and then we drove nine miles to the 
railroad. This was through a wild and solemn valley, 
and by the side of a rushing river, full of waterfalls 
and deep and diresome pools. When we reached the 
railroad we found a train waiting, and we took it and 
went to Oban, which we reached about six o’clock 
Even this railroad trip was delightful, for we went by 
the great Loch Awe, with another rushing river and 
mountains and black precipices. We had a carriage 
all to ourselves until an old lady got in at a station, 
and she hadn’t been sitting in her corner more than 
ten minutes before she turned to me and said : 

“You haven’t any lakes like this in your country, I 
suppose.” 


1 88 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


Now I must say that, in the heated condition I had 
been in ever since I came into Scotland, a speech like 
that was like a squirt of cold water into a thing full 
of steam. For a couple of seconds my boiling stopped, 
but my fires was just as blazing as ever, and I felt as 
if I could turn them on that old woman and shrivel 
her up for plastering her comparisons on me at such 
a time. 

“Of course, we haven’t anything just like this,” I 
said, “but it takes all sorts of scenery to make up a 
world.” 

“That’s very true, isn’t it? ” said she. “But, really, 
one couldn’t expect in America such a lake as that, 
such mountains, such grandeur ! ” 

Now I made up my mind if she was going to keep 
up this sort of thing Jone and me would change car- 
riages when we stopped at the next station, for com- 
parisons are very different from poetry, and if you 
try to mix them with scenery you make a mess that 
is not fit for a Christian. But I thought first I would 
give her a word back. 

“I have seen to-day,” I said, “the loveliest scenery 
I ever met with. But we’ve got grand canons in 
America where you could put the whole of that 
scenery without crowding, and where it wouldn’t be 
much noticed by spectators, so busy would they be 
gazing at the surrounding wonders.” 

“Fancy ! ” said she. 

“I don’t want to say anything,” said I, “against 
what I have seen to-day, and I don’t want to think of 
anything else while I am looking at it, but this I will 
say : that landscape with Scott is very different from 
landscape without him.” 


189 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


“That is very true, isn’t it?” said she. And then 
she stopped making comparisons, and I looked out of 
the window. 

Oban is a very pretty place on the coast, but we 
never should have gone there if it had not been the 
place to start from for Staffa and Iona. When I was 
only a girl I saw pictures of Fingal’s Cave, and I have 
read a good deal about it since, and it is one of the 
spots in the world that I have been longing to see, 
but I feel like crying when I tell you, madam, that 
the next morning there was such a storm that the 
boat for Staffa didn’t even start. And as the people 
told us that the storm would most likely last two or 
three days, and that the sea for a few days more 
would be so rough that Staffa would be out of the 
question, we had to give it up, and I was obliged to 
fall back from the reality to my imagination. Jone 
tried to comfort me by telling me that he would be 
willing to bet ten to one that my fancy would soar a 
mile above the real thing, and that perhaps it was 
very well I didn’t see old Fingal’s Cave and so be 
disappointed. 

“ Perhaps it is a good thing,” said I, “that you 
didn’t go, and that you didn’t get so seasick that you 
would be ready to renounce your country’s flag and 
embrace Mormonism if such things would make you 
feel better.” But that is the only thing that is 
good about it, and I have a cloud on my recollection 
which shall never be lifted until Corinne is old enough 
to travel, and we come here with her. 

But although the storm was so bad, it was not bad 
enough to keep us from making our water trip to 
Glasgow, for the boat we took did not have to go out 
190 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


to sea. It was a wonderfully beautiful passage we 
made among the islands and along the coast, with the 
great mountains on the mainland standing up above 
everything else. After a while we got to the Crinan 
Canal, which is in reality a short cut across the field. 
It is nine miles long and not much wider than a good- 
sized ditch, but it saves more than a hundred miles of 
travel around an island. We was on a sort of a toy 
steamboat which went its way through the fields and 
bushes and grass so close we could touqh them. And 
as there was eleven locks where the boat had to stop, 
we got out two or three times and walked along the 
banks to the next lock. That being the kind of a 
ride Jone likes, he blessed Buxton. At the other end 
of the canal we took a bigger steamboat, which carried 
us to Glasgow. 

In the morning it hailed, which afterwards turned to 
rain, but in the afternoon there was only showers now 
and then, so that we spent most of the time on deck. 
On this boat we met a very nice Englishman and his 
wife, and when they had heard us speak to each other 
they asked us if we had ever been in this part of the 
world before, and when we said we hadn’t, they told 
us about the places we passed. If we had been an 
English couple who had never been there before they 
wouldn’t have said a word to us. 

As we got near the Clyde, the gentleman began to 
talk about ship-building, and pretty soon I saw in his 
face plain symptoms that he was going to have an at- 
tack of comparison-making. I have seen so much of 
this disorder that I can nearly always tell when it is 
coming on a person. In about a minute the disease 
broke out on him, and he began to talk about the 
191 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


differences between American and English ships. He 
told Jone and me about a steamship that was built 
out in San Francisco which shook three thousand 
bolts out of herself on her first voyage. It seemed to 
me that that was a good deal like a codfish shaking 
his bones out through swimming too fast. I couldn’t 
help thinking that that steamship must have had a 
lot of bolts so as to have enough left to keep her from 
scattering herself over the bottom of the ocean. 

I expected Jone to say something in behalf of his 
country’s ships, but he didn’t seem to pay much atten- 
tion to the boat story, so I took up the cudgels myself, 
and I said to the gentleman that all nations, no matter 
how good they might be at ship -building, sometimes 
made mistakes, and then, to make a good impression 
on him, I whanged him over the head with the Great 
Eastern , and asked him if there ever was a vessel that 
was a greater failure than that. 

He said, “Yes, yes, the Great Eastern was not a suc- 
cess,” and then he stopped talking about ships. 

When we got fairly into the Clyde and near Glasgow 
the scene was wonderful. It was nearly night, and 
the great fires of the factories lit up the sky, and we 
saw on the stocks a great ship being built. 

We stayed in Glasgow one day, and Jone was de- 
lighted with it, because he said it was like an Amer- 
ican city. Now, on principle, I like American cities, 
but I didn’t come to Scotland to see them. And the 
greatest pleasure I had in Glasgow was standing with 
a tumbler of water in my hand, repeating to myself 
as much of “The Lady of the Lake” as I could 
remember. 


192 


LETTER NUMBER TWENTY -FIVE 


London. 

Here we are in this wonderful town, where, if yon 
can’t see everything yon want to see, yon can gener- 
ally see a sample of it, even if yonr fad happens to be 
the ancientnesses of Egypt. We are at the Babylon 
Hotel, where we shall stay until it is time to start 
for Southampton, where we shall take the steamer 
for home. What we are going to do between here 
and Southampton I don’t know yet, but I do know 
that Jone is all on fire with joy because he thinks 
his journeys are nearly over, and I am chilled with 
grief when I think that my journeys are nearly over. 

We left Edinburgh on the train called the u Flying 
Scotsman,” and it deserved its name. I suppose that 
in the days of Wallace and Bruce and Rob Roy the 
Scots must often have skipped along in a lively way. 
But I am sure if any of them had ever invaded Eng- 
land at the rate we went into it, the British lion 
would soon have been living on thistles instead of 
roses. 

The speed of this train was sometimes a mile a 
minute, I think. And I am sure I was never on any 
railroad in America where I was given a shorter time 
to get out for something to eat than we had at York. 

193 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


Jone and I are generally pretty quick about such 
things, but we had barely time to get back to our car- 
riage before that “ Flying Scotsman” went off like a 
streak of lightning. 

On the way we saw a part of York Minster, and 
had a splendid view of Durham Cathedral, standing 
high in the unreachable — that is, as far as I was 
concerned. Peterborough Cathedral we also saw the 
outside of, and I felt like a boy looking in at a con- 
fectioner’s window with no money to buy anything. 
It wasn’t money that I wanted — it was time, and we 
had very little of that left. 

The next day, after we reached London, I set out 
to attend to a piece of business that I didn’t want 
Jone to know anything about. My business was to 
look up my family pedigree. It seemed to me that 
it would be a shame if I went away from the home of 
my ancestors without knowing something about those 
ancestors, and about the links that connected me with 
them. So I determined to see what I could do in the 
way of making up a family tree. 

By good luck, Jone had some business to attend to 
about money and rooms on the steamer, and so forth, 
and so I could start out by myself, without his even 
asking me where I was going. Now, of course, it 
would be a natural thing for a person to go and seek 
out his ancestors in the ancient village from which 
they sprang, and to read their names on the tomb- 
stones in the venerable little church, but as I didn’t 
know where this village was, of course I couldn’t go 
to it. But in London is the place where you can find 
out how to find out such things. 

As far back as when we was in Chedcombe, I had had 
194 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


a good deal Ox talk with Miss Pondar about ancestors 
and families. I told her that my forefathers came 
from this country, which I was very sure of, judging 
from my feelings. But as I couldn’t tell her any par- 
ticulars, I didn’t go into the matter very deep. But 
I did say there was a good many points that I would 
like to set straight, and asked her if she knew where 
I could find out something about English family trees. 
She said she had heard there was a big heraldry office 
in London, but if I didn’t want to go there, she knew 
of a person who was a family-tree man. He had an 
office in London, and his business was to go around 
and tend to trees of that kind which had been neg- 
lected, and to get them into shape and good condition. 
She gave me his address, and I had kept the thing 
quiet in my mind until now. 

I found the family -tree man, whose name was Bran- 
dish, in a small room not too clean, over a shop not 
far from St. Paul’s Churchyard. He had another 
business, which related to patent poison for flies, and 
at first he thought I had come to see him about that, 
but when he found out I wanted to ask him about my 
family tree his face brightened up. 

When I told Mr. Brandish my business, the first 
thing he asked me was my family name. Of course, I 
had expected this, and I had thought a great deal 
about the answer I ought to give. In the first place, 
I didn’t want to have anything to do with my father’s 
name. I never had anything much to do with him, 
because he died when I was a little baby, and his 
name had nothing high-toned about it, and it seemed 
to me to belong to that kind of a family that you 
would be better satisfied with the less you looked up 
195 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


its beginnings. But my mother's family was a differ- 
ent thing. Nobody could know her without feeling 
that she had sprung from good roots. It might have 
been from the stump of a tree that had been cut 
down, but the roots must have been of no common 
kind to send up such a shoot as she was. It was from 
her that I got my longings for the romantic. 

She used to tell me a good deal about her father, 
who must have been a wonderful man in many ways. 
What she told me was not like a sketch of his life, 
which I wish it had been, but mostly anecdotes of 
what he said and did. So it was my mother's ances- 
tral tree I determined to find, and without saying 
whether it was on my mother's or father's side I was 
searching for ancestors, I told Mr. Brandish that Dork 
was the family name. 

“Dork," said he. “ A rather uncommon name, isn't 
it ? Was your father the eldest son of a family of that 
name ? " 

Now I was hoping he wouldn't say anything about 
my father. 

“No, sir," said I. “ It isn’t that line that I am 
looking up. It is my mother's. Her name was Dork 
before she was married." 

“Really! Now I see," said he. “You have the 
paternal line all correct, and you want to look up the 
line on the other side. That is very common. It is so 
seldom that one knows the line of ancestors on one’s 
maternal side. Dork, then, was the name of your 
maternal grandfather." 

It struck me that a maternal grandfather must be a 
grandmother, but I didn’t say so. 

“Can you tell me," said he, “whether it was he who 
196 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


emigrated from this country to America, or whether 
it was his father or his grandfather?” 

Now I hadn’t said anything about the United States, 
for I had learned there was no use in wasting breath 
telling English people I had come from America, so I 
wasn’t surprised at his question, but I couldn’t an- 
swer it. 

“ I can’t say much about that,” I said, “until I have 
found out something about the English branches of 
the family.” 

“Very good,” said he. “We will look over the 
records,” and he took down a big book and turned to 
the letter D. He ran his finger down two or three 
pages, and then he began to shake his head. 

“Dork?” said he. “There doesn’t seem to be any 
Dork, but here is Dorkminster. Now, if that was 
your family name we’d have it all here. No doubt 
you know all about that family. It’s a grand old 
family, isn’t it? Isn’t it possible that your grandfa- 
ther or one of his ancestors may have dropped part of 
the name when he changed his residence to America ? ” 

Now I began to think hard. There was some reason 
in what the family-tree man said. I knew very well 
that the same family name was often different in 
different countries, changes being made to suit cli- 
mates and people. 

“* Minster’ has a religious meaning, hasn’t it?” 
said I. 

“Yes, madam,” said he. “It relates to cathedrals 
and that sort of thing.” 

Now, so far as I could remember, none of the things 
my mother had ever told me about her father was in 
any ways related to religion. They was mostly about 
197 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


horses. And although there is really no reason for the 
disconnection between horses and religion, especially 
when yon consider the hymns with heavenly chariots 
in them must have had horses, it didn’t seem to me 
that my grandfather could have made it a point of 
being religious, and perhaps he mightn’t have cared 
for the cathedral part of his name, and so might have 
dropped it for convenience in signing, probably being 
generally in a hurry, judging from what my mother 
had told me. I said as much to Mr. Brandish, and he 
answered that he thought it was likely enough, and 
that that sort of thing was often done. 

“Now, then,” said he, “let us look into the Dork- 
minster line and trace out your connection with that. 
From what place did your ancestors come ? ” 

It seemed to me that he was asking me a good deal 
more than he was telling me, and I said to him : “That 
is what I want to find out. What is the family home 
of the Dorkminsters ? ” 

“Oh, they were a great Hampshire family,” said he. 
“For five hundred years they lived on their estates in 
Hampshire. The first of the name was Sir William 
Dorkminster, who came over with the Conqueror, and 
most likely was given those estates for his services. 
Then we go on until we come to the Duke of Dork- 
minster, who built a castle, and whose brother Henry 
was made bishop and founded an abbey, which I am 
sorry to say doesn’t now exist, being totally destroyed 
by Oliver Cromwell.” 

You cannot imagine how my blood leaped and 
surged within me as I listened to those words. Wil- 
liam the Conqueror ! An ancestral abbey ! A duke ! 
“Is the family castle still standing?” said I. 

198 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


“It fell into ruins / 7 said he, “during the reign of 
Charles I, and even its site is now uncertain, the park 
having been devoted to agricultural purposes. The 
fourth Duke of Dorkminster was to have commanded 
one of the ships which destroyed the Spanish Armada, 
but was prevented by a mortal fever which cut him 
off in his prime. He died without issue, and the 
estates passed to the Culverhams of Wilts . 77 

“Did that cut off the line ? 77 said I, very quick. 

“Oh, no , 77 said the family-tree man, “the line went 
on. One of the duke’s younger sisters must have 
married a man on condition that he took the old family 
name, which is often done, and her descendants must 
have emigrated somewhere, for the name no longer 
appears in Hampshire— but probably not to America, 
for that was rather early for English emigration . 77 

“Do you suppose , 77 said I, “that they went to Scot- 
land ? 77 

“Very likely , 77 said he, after thinking a minute. 
“That would be probable enough. Have you reason 
to suppose that there was a Scotch branch in your 
family ? 77 

“Yes , 77 said I, for it would have been positively 
wrong in me to say that the feelings that I had for 
the Scotch hadn’t any meaning at all. 

“How, then , 77 said Mr. Brandish, “there you are, 
madam. There is a line all the way down from the 
Conqueror to the end of the sixteenth century, scarcely 
one man’s lifetime before the Pilgrims landed on Ply- 
mouth Bock ! 77 

I now began to calculate in my mind. I was thirty 
years old. My mother, most likely, was about as old 
when I was born. That made sixty years. Then my 
199 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


grandfather might have been forty when my mother 
was born, and there was a century. As for my great- 
grandfather and his parents, I didn’t know anything 
about them. Of course, there must have been such 
persons, but I didn’t know where they came from, or 
where they went to. 

“I can go back a century,” said I, “but that doesn’t 
begin to meet the end of the line you have marked 
out. There’s a gap of about two hundred years.” 

“Oh, I don’t think I would mind that,” said Mr. 
Brandish. “Gaps of that kind are constantly occur- 
ring in family trees. In fact, if we was to allow gaps 
of a century or so to interfere with the working out 
of family lines, it would cut off a great many noble 
ancestries from families of high position, especially in 
the colonies and abroad. I beg you not to pay any 
attention to that, madam.” 

My nerves was tingling with the thought of the 
Spanish Armada, and perhaps Bannockburn (which 
then made me wish I had known all this before I went 
to Stirling, but which battle, now as I write, I know 
must have been fought a long time before any of the 
Dorks went to Scotland), and I expect my eyes flashed 
with family pride, for, do what I would, I couldn’t sit 
calm and listen to what I was hearing. But, after 
all, that two hundred years did weigh upon my mind. 
“If you make a family tree for me,” said I, “you will 
have to cut off the trunk, and begin again somewhere 
up in the air.” 

“Oh, no,” said he, “we don’t do that. We arrange 
the branches so that they overlap each other, and the 
dotted lines which indicate the missing portions are 
not noticed. Then, after further investigation and 
200 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


more information, the dots can be run together and 
the tree made complete and perfect.” 

Of course, I had nothing more to say, and he prom- 
ised to send me the tree the next morning, though, of 
course, requesting me to pay him in advance, which 
was the rule of the office. And you would be amazed, 
madam, if you knew how much that tree cost. I got 
it the next morning, but I haven 7 1 shown it to Jone 
yet. I am proud that I own it, and I have thrills 
through me whenever my mind goes back to its Nor- 
man roots. But I am bound to say that family trees 
sometimes throw a good deal of shade over their 
owners, especially when they have gaps in them, 
which seems contrary to nature, but is true to fact. 


201 


LETTER NUMBER TWENTY-SIX 


Southwestern Hotel, Southampton. 
To-morrow our steamer sails, and this is the last 
letter I shall write on English soil. And although I 
haven’t done half that I wanted to, there are ever so 
many things I have done that I can’t write you about. 

I had seen so few cathedrals that on the way down 
here I was bound to see at least one good one, and so 
we stopped at Winchester. It was while walking 
under the arches of that venerable pile that the 
thought suddenly came to me that we were now in 
Hampshire, and that, perhaps, in this cathedral might 
be some of the tombs of my ancestors. Without say- 
ing what I was after, I began at one of the doors, and 
I went clean around that enormous church, and read 
every tablet in the walls and on the floor. 

Once I had a shock. There was a good many small 
tombs with roofs over them, and statues of people 
buried within lying on top of the tombs, and some of 
them had their faces and clothes colored so as to make 
them look almost as natural as life. They was mostly 
bishops, and had been lying there for centuries. 
While looking at these I came to a tomb with an 
opening low down on the side of it, and behind some 
iron bars there lay a stone figure that made me fairly 
202 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


jump. He was on his back, with hardly any clothes 
on, and was actually nothing but skin and bones. His 
month was open, as if he was gasping for his last 
breath. I never saw such an awful sight, and as I 
looked at the thing my blood began to run cold, and 
then it froze. The freezing was because I suddenly 
thought to myself that this might be a Dorkminster, 
and that that horrible object was my ancestor. I was 
actually afraid to look at the inscription on the tomb- 
stone, for fear that this was so, for if it was, I knew 
that whenever I should think of my family tree this 
bag of bones would be climbing up the trunk or sit- 
ting on one of the branches. But I must know the 
truth, and trembling so that I could scarcely read, I 
stooped down to look at the inscription and find out 
who that dreadful figure had been. It was not a 
Dorkminster, and my spirits rose. 

We got here three days ago, and we have made a 
visit to the Isle of Wight. We went straight down 
to the southern coast, and stopped all night at the 
little town of Bonchurch. It was very lovely down 
there, with roses and other flowers blooming out of 
doors as if it was summer, although it is now getting 
so cold everywhere else. But what pleased me most 
was to stand at the top of a little hill, and look out 
over the waters of the English Channel, and feel that 
not far out of eyeshot was the beautiful land of France, 
with its lower part actually touching Italy. 

You know, madam, that when we was here before, 
we was in France, and a happy woman was I to be 
there, although so much younger than now I couldn’t 
properly enjoy it. But even then France was only 
part of the road to Italy, which, alas ! we never got to. 

203 


POMONA'S TRAVELS 


Some day, however, I shall float in a gondola and walk 
amid the ruins of ancient Rome, and if Jone is too 
sick of travel to go with me, it may be necessary for 
Corinne to see the world, and I shall take her. 

Now I must finish this letter and bid good-by to 
beautiful Britain, which has made us happy and 
treated us well, in spite of some comparisons in which 
we was expected to be on the wrong side, but which 
hurt nobody, and which I don’t want even to think 
of at such a moment as this. 


204 


LETTER NUMBER TWENTY -SEVEN 


New York. 

I send yon this, madam, to let you know that we ar- 
rived here safely yesterday afternoon, and that we are 
going to-day to Jone’s mother’s farm, where Corinne is. 

I liked sailing from Southampton, because when I 
start to go to a place I like to go, and when we went 
home before, and had to begin by going all the way 
up to Liverpool by land, and then coming all the way 
back again by water, and after a couple of days of 
this, to stop at Queenstown and begin the real voyage 
from there, I did not like it, although it was a good 
deal of fun seeing the bumboat women come aboard 
at Queenstown and telescope themselves into each 
other as they hurried up the ladder to get on deck 
and sell us things. 

We had a very good voyage, with about enough 
rolling to make the dining-saloon look like some of 
the churches we’ve seen abroad on week-days where 
there was services regular, but mighty small congre- 
gations. 

When we got in sight of my native shore, England, 
Scotland, and even the longed-for Italy, with her pal- 
aces and gondolas, faded from my mind, and my every 
fibre tingled with pride and patriotism. We reached 
205 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 

our dock about six o’clock in the afternoon, and I 
could scarcely stand still, so anxious was I to get 
ashore. There was a train at eight which reached 
Bockbridge at half-past nine, and there we could take 
a carriage and drive to the farm in less than an hour, 
and then Corinne would be in my arms. So you may 
imagine my state of mind— Corinne before bedtime ! 
But a cloud blacker than the heaviest fog came down 
upon me, for while we was standing on the deck, ex- 
pecting every minute to land, a man came along and 
shouted at the top of his voice that no baggage could 
be examined by the custom-house officers after six 
o’clock, and the passengers could take nothing ashore 
with them but their hand-bags, and must come back 
in the morning and have their baggage examined. 
When I heard this my soul simply boiled within me ! 
I looked at Jone, and I could see he was boiling just 
as bad. 

“ Jone,” said I, “don’t say a word to me.” 

“I am not going to say a word,” said he, and he 
didn’t. All our belongings was in our trunks. Jone 
didn’t carry any hand-bag, and I had only a little one, 
which had in it three newspapers, which we bought 
from the pilot, a tooth-brush, a spool of thread and 
some needles, and a pair of scissors with one point 
broken off. With these things we had to go to a 
hotel and spend the night, and in the morning we had 
to go back to have our trunks examined, which, as 
there was nothing in them to pay duty on, was waste 
time for all parties, no matter when it was done. 

That night, when I was lying awake thinking 
about this welcome to our native land, I don’t say 
that I hauled down the Stars and Stripes, but I did 
206 


POMONA’S TRAVELS 


put them at half-mast. When we arrived in England, 
we got ashore about twelve o’clock at night, but there 
was the custom-house officers, as civil and obliging as 
any people could be, ready to tend to us and pass us 
on. And when I thought of them, and afterward of 
the lordly hirelings who met us here, I couldn’t help 
feeling what a glorious thing it would be to travel if 
you could get home without coming back. 

Jone tried to comfort me by telling me that we 
ought to be very glad we don’t like this sort of thing. 
“In many foreign countries,” said he, “people are a 
good deal nagged by their governments, and they like 
it. We don’t like it, so haul up your flag.” 

I hauled it up, and it’s flying now from the tiptop 
of my tallest mast. In an hour our train starts, and I 
shall see Corinne before the sun goes down. 


207 


EUPHEMIA AMONG THE PELICANS 























EUPHEMIA AMONG THE PELICANS 


T HE sun shone warm and soft, as it shines in 
winter-time in the semi-tropics. The wind blew 
strong, as it blows whenever and wherever it listeth. 
Seven pelicans labored slowly through the air. A 
flock of ducks rose from the surface of the river. A 
school of mullet, disturbed by a shark, or some other 
unscrupulous pursuer, sprang suddenly out of the 
water just before us, and fell into it again like the 
splashing of a sudden shower. 

I lay upon the roof of the cabin of a little yacht. 
Euphemia stood below, her feet upon the mess-chest, 
and her elbows resting on the edge of the cabin roof. 
A sudden squall would have unshipped her. Still, if 
one would be happy, there are risks that must be as- 
sumed. At the open entrance of the cabin, busily 
writing on a hanging shelf that served as a table, sat 
a Paying Teller. On the high box which during most 
of the day covered our stove was a little lady, writing 
in a note-book. On the forward deck, at the foot of the 
mast, sat a young man in a state of placidness. His 
feet stuck out on the bowsprit, while his mildly con- 
templative eyes went forth unto the roundabout. At 
the tiller stood our guide and boatman, his sombre 
eye steady on the south-by-east. Around the horizon 
211 


EUPHEMIA AMONG THE PELICANS 


of his countenance there spread a dark and six days’ 
beard, like a slowly rising thunder-cloud. Ever and 
anon there was a gleam of white teeth, like a bright 
break in the sky, but it meant nothing. During all 
our trip, the sun never shone in that face. It never 
stormed, but it was always cloudy. But he was the 
best boatman on those waters, and when he stood at 
the helm we knew we sailed secure. We wanted a 
man familiar with storms and squalls, and if this 
familiarity had developed into facial sympathy, it 
mattered not. We could attend to our own sunshine. 
At his feet quietly sat his boy of twelve, whom we 
called the “crew.” He was making fancy knots in a 
bit of rope. This and the occupation of growing 
up were the only labors in which he willingly en- 
gaged. 

Euphemia and I had left Rudder Grange to spend 
a month or two in Florida, and we were now on a lit- 
tle sloop-yacht on the bright waters of the Indian 
River. It must not be supposed that, because we had 
a Paying Teller with us, we had set up a floating 
bank. With this Paying Teller from a distant State 
we had made acquaintance on our first entrance into 
Florida. He was travelling in what Euphemia called 
a “group,” which consisted of his wife,— the little lady 
with the note -book,— the contemplative young man on 
the forward deck, and himself. 

This Paying Teller had worked so hard and so rap- 
idly at his business for several years, and had paid 
out so much of his health and strength, that it was 
necessary for him to receive large deposits of these 
essentials before he could go to work again. But the 
peculiar habits of his profession never left him. He 
212 


EUPHEMIA AMONG THE PELICANS 


was continually paying out something. If you pre- 
sented a conversational check to him in the way of a 
remark, he would, figuratively speaking, immediately 
jump to his little window and proceed to cash it, 
sometimes astonishing you by the amount of small 
change he would spread out before you. 

When he heard of our intention to cruise on Indian 
River, he wished to join his group to our party, and 
as he was a good fellow we were glad to have him do 
so. His wife had been, or was still, a school-teacher. 
Her bright and cheerful face glistened with infor- 
mation. 

The contemplative young man was a distant con- 
nection of the Teller, and, his first name being Quincy, 
was commonly called Quee. If he had wanted to 
know any of the many things the little teacher wished 
to tell he would have been a happy youth. But his 
contemplation seldom crystallized into a knowledge of 
what he did want to know. 

“And how can I,” she once said to Euphemia and 
myself, “be expected ever to offer him any light, when 
he can never bring himself to actually roll up a ques- 
tion ? ” 

This was said while I was rolling a cigarette. 

The group was greatly given to writing in journals, 
and making estimates. Euphemia and I did little of 
this, as it was our holiday, but it was often pleasant 
to see the work going on. The business in which the 
Paying Teller was now engaged was the writing of 
his journal, and his wife held a pencil in her kidded 
fingers and a little blank-book on her knees. 

This was our first day upon the river. 

“Where are we?” asked Euphemia. “I know we 
213 


EUPHEMIA AMONG THE PELICANS 


are on the Indian River, but where is the Indian 
River? ” 

“It is here,” I said. 

“But where is here?” reiterated Euphemia. 

“There are only three places in the world,” said 
the teacher, looking up from her book,— “here, there, 
and we don’t know where. Every spot on earth is in 
one or another of those three places.” 

“As far as I am concerned,” said Euphemia, “the 
Indian River is in the last place.” 

“Then we must hasten to take it out,” said the 
teacher, and she dived into the cabin, soon reappear- 
ing with a folding map of Florida. “Here,” she said, 
“do you see that wide river running along part of the 
Atlantic coast of the State, and extending down as far 
as Jupiter Inlet? That is Indian River, and we are 
on it. Its chief characteristics are that it is not a 
river, but an arm of the sea, and that it is full of fish.” 

“It seems to me to be so full,” said I, “that there is 
not room for them all— that is, if we are to judge by 
the way the mullet jump out.” 

“I think,” said the teacher, making a spot with her 
pencil on the map, “that just now we are about here.” 

“It is the first time,” said Euphemia, “that I ever 
looked upon an unknown region on the map, and felt 
I was there.” 

Our plans for travel and living were very simple. 
We had provided ourselves, on starting, with provi- 
sions for several weeks, and while on the river we 
cooked and ate on board our little vessel. When we 
reached Jupiter Inlet we intended to go into camp. 
Every night we anchored near the shore. Euphemia 
and I occupied the cabin of the boat. A tent was 
214 


EUPHEMIA AMONG THE PELICANS 


pitched on shore for the Teller and his wife. There 
was another tent for the captain and his boy, and 
this was shared by the contemplative young man. 

Our second night on the river was tinged with in- 
cident. We had come to anchor near a small settle- 
ment, and onr craft had been moored to a rude wharf. 
About the middle of the night a wind-storm arose, 
and Euphemia and I were awakened by the bumping 
of the boat against the wharf-posts. Through the 
open end of the cabin I could see that the night was 
very dark, and I began to consider the question 
whether or not it would be necessary for me to get 
up, much preferring, however, that the wind should 
go down. Before I had made up my mind, we heard 
a step on the deck above us, and then a quick and 
hurried tramping. I put my head out of the little 
window by me, and cried : 

“Who’s there ?” 

The voice of the boatman replied out of the dark- 
ness : 

“ She’ll bump herself to pieces against this pier! 
I’m going to tow you out into the stream.” So 
he cast us loose, and getting into the little boat which 
was fastened to our stern, and always followed us as 
a colt its mother, he towed us far out into the stream. 
There he anchored us, and rowed away. The bumps 
now ceased, but the wind still blew violently, the 
waves ran high, and the yacht continually wabbled 
up and down, tugging and jerking at her anchor. 
Neither of us was frightened, but we could not 
sleep. 

“I know nothing can happen,” said Euphemia, 
“for he would not have left us here if everything 
215 


EUPHEMIA AMONG THE PELICANS 


had not been all right, but one might as well try to 
sleep in a corn-popper as in this bed . 77 

After a while the violent motion ceased, and there 
was nothing but a gentle surging up and down. 

“I am so glad the wind has lulled , 77 said Euphemia, 
from the other side of the centre-board partition 
which partially divided the cabin. 

Although I could still hear the wind blowing 
strongly outside, I, too, was glad that its force had 
diminished so far that we felt no more the violent 
jerking that had disturbed us, and I soon fell asleep. 

In the morning, when I awoke, I saw that the sun 
was shining brightly, and that a large sea-grape bush 
was hanging over our stern. I sprang out of bed, 
and found that we had run, stern foremost, upon a 
sandy beach. About forty feet away, upon the shore, 
stood two possums, gazing with white, triangular 
faces upon our stranded craft. Except these, and 
some ducks swimming near us, with seven pelicans 
flying along on the other side of the river, there was no 
sign of life within the range of my sight. I was not 
long in understanding the situation. It had not been 
the lulling of the storm, but the parting of our cable 
which had caused the uneasy jerking of our little 
yacht to cease. We had been blown I knew not how 
far down the river, for the storm had come from the 
north, and had stranded I knew not where. Taking 
out my pocket-compass, I found that we were on the 
eastern shore of the river, and that the wind had 
changed completely, and was now blowing, not very 
strong, from the southeast. I made up my mind 
what must be done. We were probably far from the 
settlement and the rest of the party, and we must go 
216 


EUPHEMIA AMONG THE PELICANS 

back. The wind was in our favor, and I knew I 
could sail the boat. I had never sailed a boat in my 
life, and was only too glad to have the opportunity, 
untrammelled by any interference. 

I awoke Euphemia, and told her what had hap- 
pened. The two possums stood upon the shore and 
listened to our conversation. Euphemia was much 
impressed by the whole affair, and for a time said 
no thing. 

“We must sail her back, I suppose,” she remarked 
at length, “but do you know how to start her?” 

“The hardest thing to do is to get her off the 
beach,” I answered, “but I think I can do that.” 

I rolled up my trousers, and, with bare feet, jumped 
out upon the sand. The two possums retired a little, 
but still watched my proceedings. After a great deal 
of pushing and twisting and lifting, I got the yacht 
afloat, and then went on board to set the sail. After 
much pulling and tugging, and making myself very 
warm, I hoisted the mainsail. I did not trouble my- 
self about the jib, one sail being enough for me to 
begin with. As the wind was blowing in the direction 
in which we wished to go, I let the sail out until it 
stood nearly at right angles with the vessel, and I was 
delighted to see that we immediately began to move 
through the water. I took the tiller, and steered 
gradually toward the middle of the river. The wind 
blew steadily, and the yacht moved bravely on. I 
was as proud as a man drawn by a conquered lion, and 
as happy as one who did not know that conquered 
lions may turn and rend. Sometimes the vessel rolled 
so much that the end of the boom skimmed the sur- 
face of the water, and sometimes the sail gave a little 
217 


EUPHEMIA AMONG THE PELICANS 


jerk and flap, but I saw no necessity for changing our 
course, and kept our bow pointed steadily up the 
river. I was delighted that the direction of the wind 
enabled me to sail with what might be called a hori- 
zontal deck. Of course, as the boatman afterwards in- 
formed me, this was the most dangerous way I could 
steer, for if the sail should suddenly “jibe,” there 
would be no knowing what would happen. Euphemia 
sat near me, perfectly placid and cheerful, and her 
absolute trust in me gave me renewed confidence and 
pleasure. “There is one great comfort,” she re- 
marked, as she sat gazing into the water : “if any- 
thing should happen to the boat, we can get out and 
walk.” 

There was force in this remark, for the Indian 
River in some of its widest parts is very shallow, and 
we could now plainly see the bottom, a few feet 
below us. 

“Is that the reason you have seemed so trustful and 
content?” I asked. 

“That is the reason,” said Euphemia. 

On we went and on, the yacht seeming sometimes a 
little restive and impatient, and sometimes rolling 
more than I could see any necessity for, but still it 
proceeded. Euphemia sat in the shadow of the cabin, 
serene and thoughtful, and I, holding the tiller stead- 
ily amidship, leaned back and gazed up into the clear, 
blue sky. 

In the midst of my gazing there came a shock that 
knocked the tiller out of my hand. Euphemia sprang 
to her feet and screamed. There were screams and 
shouts on the other side of the sail, which seemed to 
be wrapping itself about some object I could not see. 

218 


EUPHEMIA AMONG THE PELICANS 


In an instant another mast besides our own appeared 
above the mainsail, and then a man with a red face 
jumped on the forward deck. With a quick, deter- 
mined air, and without saying a word, or seeming to 
care for my permission, he proceeded to lower our 
sail. Then he stepped up on top of the cabin, and, 
looking down at me, inquired what in thunder I was 
trying to do. 

I made no answer, but looked steadily before me. 
Now that the sail was down, I could see what had 
happened. I had collided with a yacht which we 
had seen before. It was larger than ours, and con- 
tained a grandfather and a grandmother, a father and 
a mother, several aunts, and a great many children. 
They had started on the river the same day as our- 
selves, but did not intend to take so extended a trip 
as ours was to be. The whole party was now in the 
greatest confusion. I did not understand what they 
said, nor did I attend to it. I was endeavoring, for 
myself, to grasp the situation. Euphemia was calling 
to me from the cabin, into which she had retreated. 
The man was still talking to me from the cabin roof, 
and the people in the other boat were vociferating 
and screaming. But I paid no attention to any one 
until I had satisfied myself that nothing serious had 
happened. I had not run into them head on, but had 
come up diagonally, and the side of our bow had 
struck the side of their stern. The collision, as I after- 
wards learned, had happened in this wise : I had not 
seen the other boat because, lying back as I had been, 
the sail concealed her from me, and they had not seen 
us because their boatman was in the forward part of 
their cabin collecting materials for breakfast, and the 
219 


EUPHEMIA AMONG THE PELICANS 


tiller was left in charge of one of the boys, who, like 
all the rest of his party who sat outside, had discreetly 
turned his back to the sun. 

The grandfather stood up in the stern. He wore a 
black silk hat, and carried a heavy grape-vine cane. 
Unsteadily balancing himself on his legs, and shaking 
his cane at me, he cried : 

“What is the meaning of this, sir? Are you trying 
to drown a whole family, sir ? ” 

“If he’d run his bowsprit in among you,” said the 
boatman from the cabin roof, “he’d ’a’ killed a lot of 
you before you’d been drowned.” 

Euphemia screamed to me to come to her. The 
father was standing on his cabin roof, shouting some- 
thing to me. The women in the other boat were vio- 
lently talking among themselves. Some of the little 
children were crying. The girls were hanging to the 
ladies, and all the boys were clambering on board our 
boat. It was a time of great excitement, and some- 
thing must be instantly said by me. My decision 
was quick. 

“Have you any tea?” I said, addressing the old 
gentleman. 

“Tea ! ” he roared. “What do you mean by that? ” 

“We have plenty of coffee on board,” I answered, 
“but some of our party can’t drink it. If you have 
any tea, I should like to borrow some. I can send it 
to you when we reach a store.” 

From every person of the other party came, as in a 
chorus, the one word, “Tea?” And Euphemia put 
her pale face out of the cabin, and said, in a tone of 
wondering inquiry, “Tea?” 

220 


EUPHEMIA AMONG THE PELICANS 


“Did you bang into us this way to borrow tea?” 
roared the old gentleman. 

“I did not intend, of course, to strike you so hard,” 
I said, “and I am sorry I did so, but I should: like to 
borrow some tea.” 

Euphemia whispered to me : 

“We have tea.” 

I looked at her, and she locked her lips. 

“Of course we can give you some tea, if you want 
some,” said the red-faced boatman, “but I never heared 
of a thing like this since I was first born, nor ever 
shall again, I hope.” 

“I don’t want you to give me any tea,” I said. “I 
shall certainly return it, and a very little will do— 
just a handful.” 

The two boats had not drifted apart, for the father, 
standing on the cabin roof, had held tightly to our 
rigging, and the boatman, still muttering, went on 
board his vessel to get the tea. He brought it, 
wrapped in a piece of a newspaper. 

“Here comes your man,” he said, pointing to a little 
boat which was approaching us. “We told him we’d 
look out for you, but we didn’t think you’d come 
smashing into us like this.” 

In a few moments our boatman had pulled alongside, 
his face full of a dark inquiry. He looked at me for 
authoritative information. 

“I came here,” I said to him, “after tea.” 

“Before breakfast, I should say ! ” cried the old 
gentleman. And every one of his party burst out 
laughing. 

Much was now said, chiefly by the party of the 
221 


EUPHEMIA AMONG THE PELICANS 


other part, but our boatman paid little attention to 
any of it. The boys scrambled on board their own 
vessel. We pushed apart, hoisted sail, and were soon 
speeding away. 

u Good-by ! ” shouted the father, a genial man. 
“Let us know if you want any more groceries, and 
we’ll send them to you.” 

For six days from our time of starting we sailed 
down the Indian River. Sometimes the banks were 
miles apart, and sometimes they were very near each 
other. Sometimes we would come upon a solitary 
house or little cluster of dwellings, and then there 
would be many, many miles of wooded shore before 
another human habitation was to be seen. Inland, to 
the west, stretched a vast expanse of lonely forest 
where panthers, bears, and wildcats prowled. To 
the east lay a long strip of land, through whose tall 
palmettos came the roar of the great ocean. The 
blue sky sparkled over us every day. Now and then 
we met a little solitary craft. Countless water-fowl 
were scattered about on the surface of the stream. A 
school of mullet was usually jumping into the air. An 
alligator might sometimes be seen steadily swimming 
across the river, with only his nose and back exposed. 
And nearly always, either to the right or to the left, 
going north or going south, were seven pelicans, slowly 
flopping through the air. 

A portion of the river, far southward, called the 
Narrows, presented a very peculiar scene. The 
banks were scarcely fifty feet apart, and yet there 
were no banks. The river was shut in to the right 
by the inland shore, and to the left by a far-reaching 
island, and yet there was no inland shore, nor any isl- 
222 


EUPHEMIA AMONG THE PELICANS 


and to the left. On either side were great forests of 
mangrove-trees, standing tiptoe on their myriad 
down-dropping roots, each root midleg in the water. 
As far as we could see among the trees, there was no 
sign of ground of any kind— nothing but a grotesque 
network of roots, on which the forest stood. In this 
green-bordered avenue of water, which extended nine 
or ten miles, the thick foliage shut out the breeze, 
and our boatman was obliged to go ahead in his little 
boat and tow us along. 

“ There are Indians out West / 7 said Euphemia, as 
she sat gazing into the mangroves, “who live on roots, 
but I don’t believe they could live on these. The 
pappooses would certainly fall through.” 

At Jupiter Inlet, about a hundred and fifty miles 
from our point of starting, we went into camp, in 
which delightful condition we proposed to remain for 
a week or more. There was no trouble whatever in 
finding a suitable place for a camp. The spot selected 
was a point of land swept by cool breezes, with a 
palmetto forest in the rear of it. On two sides of the 
point stretched the clear waters of the river, while 
half a mile to the east was Jupiter Inlet, on each side 
of which rolled and tumbled the surf of the Atlantic. 
About a mile away was Jupiter Lighthouse, the only 
human habitation within twenty miles. We built a 
palmetto hut for a kitchen. We set up the tents in a 
permanent way. We constructed a little pier for the 
yacht. We built a wash-stand, a table, and a bench. 
Then, considering that we had actually gone into 
camp, we got out our fishing-lines. 

Fishing was to be the great work here. Near the 
Inlet, through which the waters of the ocean poured 
223 


EUPHEMIA AMONG THE PELICANS 


into and out of our river, on a long, sandy beach, we 
stood in line two or three hours every day except 
Sunday, and fished. Such fishing we had never im- 
agined. There were so many fishes, and they were so 
big ! The Paying Teller had never fished in his life 
before he came to Florida. He had tried at St. Au- 
gustine, with but little success. “If the sport had 
been to chuck fish into the river,” he had said, “that 
would be more in my line of business. But getting 
them out of it did not seem to suit me.” But here it 
was quite a different thing. It was a positive delight 
to him, he said, to be obliged so often to pay out his 
line. 

One day, when tired of struggling with gamy blue- 
fish and powerful cavalios (if that is the way to spell 
it), I wound up my line, and looked about to see 
what the others were doing. The Paying Teller stood 
near, on tiptoe, as usual, with his legs wide apart, his 
hat thrown back, his eyes flashing over the water, 
and his right arm stretched far out, ready for a jerk. 
Quee was farther along the beach. He had just 
landed a fish, and was standing gazing meditatively 
upon it as it lay upon the sand. The hook was still 
in its mouth, and every now and then he would give 
the line a little pull, as if to see if there really was a 
connection between it and the fish. Then he would 
stand a little longer, and meditate a little more, 
still looking alternately at the line and the fish. 
Having made up his mind, at last, that the two 
things must be separated, he knelt down upon his 
flopping prize and proceeded meditatively to extract 
the hook. The teacher was struggling at her line. 
Hand over hand she pulled it in. As it came nearer 
224 


EUPHEMIA AMONG THE PELICANS 


and nearer, her fish swam wildly from side to side, 
making the tightened line fairly hiss as it swept 
through the water. But still she pulled and pulled, 
until, red and breathless, she landed her prize upon 
the sand. 

“Hurrah ! ” shouted the Paying Teller. “That’s 
the biggest bluefish yet ! ” But he did not come to 
take the fish from the hook. He was momentarily 
expecting a bite. 

Euphemia was not to be seen. This did not surprise 
me, as she frequently gave up fishing long before the 
others, and went to stroll upon the sea-beach, a few 
hundred yards away. She was fond of fishing, but it 
soon tired her. “If you want to know what it is 
like,” she wrote to a friend in the North, “just tie a 
long string around your boy Charlie, and try to haul 
him out of the back yard into the house.” 

But Euphemia was not upon the sea-beach to-day. 
I walked a mile or so along the sand, but did not find 
her. She had gone around the little bluff to our 
shark-line. This was a long rope, like a clothes-line, 
with a short chain at the end, and a great hook, which 
was baited with a large piece of fish. It was thrown 
out every day, the land end tied to a stout stake 
driven into the sand, and the whole business given 
into the charge of the “crew,” who was to report if 
a shark should bite. But to-day the little rascal 
had wandered away, and Euphemia was managing 
the line. 

“I thought I would try to catch a shark all by my- 
self,” she said. “I wonder if there’s one on the hook 
now. Would you mind feeling the line? ” 

I laughed as I took the rope from her hand. 

225 


EUPHEMIA AMONG THE PELICANS 


“If you had a shark on the hook, my dear,” said I, 
“you would have no doubt upon the subject.” 

“It would be a splendid thing to catch the first 
one,” she said, “and there must be lots of them in 
here, for we have seen their back fins so often.” 

I was about to answer this remark when I began to 
walk out into the water. I did not at the time know 
exactly why I did this, but it seemed as if some one 
had taken me by the hand and was leading me into 
the depths. But the water splashing above my ankles 
and a scream from Euphemia made me drop the line, 
which immediately spun out to its full length, making 
the stake creak and move in the sand. 

“Goodness gracious ! ” cried Euphemia, her face 
pale as the beach. “Isn’t it horrible? We’ve got 
one ! ” 

“Horrible ! ” I cried. “Didn’t you want to get 
one ? ” And seizing the axe, which lay near by, I drove 
the stake deep down into the sand. “How it will 
hold him ! ” I cried. “He can’t pull that out ! ” 

“But how are we to pull him in?” exclaimed Eu- 
phemia. “This line is as tight as a guitar string.” 

This was true. I took hold of the rope, but could 
make no impression on it. Suddenly it slackened in 
my hand. 

“Hurrah ! ” I cried, “we may have him yet ! But 
we must play him.” 

“Play him!” exclaimed Euphemia. “You can 
never play a huge creature like that. Let me go 
and call some of the others to help.” 

“Ho, no!” I said. “Perhaps we can do it all by 
ourselves. Wind the line quickly around the top of 
the stake as I pull it in.” 


226 


EUPHEMIA AMONG THE PELICANS 

Euphemia knelt down and rapidly wound several 
yards of the slack cord around the stake. In a few 
moments it tightened again, jerking itself out of my 
hand. 

“ There, now !” said Euphemia. “He is off again ! 
You can never haul him in now.” 

u Just wait,” I said. “When he finds that he cannot 
break away he rushes toward shore, trying to bite the 
line above the chain. Then I must haul it in, and 
you must wind it up. If you and I and the shark 
continue to act in this way, perhaps, after a time, we 
may get him into shallow water. But don’t scream 
or shout. I don’t want the others to know anything 
about it.” 

Sure enough, in a minute or two the line slackened 
again, when it was rapidly drawn in and wound 
around the stake. 

“There he is ! ” exclaimed Euphemia. “I can see 
him just under the water, out there.” 

The dark form of the shark, appearing at first like 
the shadow of a little cloud, could be seen near the 
surface, about fifteen yards away. Then his back fin 
rose, his tail splashed violently for an instant, and he 
disappeared. Again the line was loosened, and again 
the slack was hauled in and wound up. This was re- 
peated I don’t know how many times, when suddenly 
the shark, in his desperation, rushed into shallow 
water and grounded himself. He would have floun- 
dered off in a few moments, however, had we not 
quickly tightened the line. How we could see him 
plainly. He was eight or nine feet long, and strug- 
gled violently, exciting Euphemia so much that it 
was only by clapping her hand over her mouth that 
227 


EUPHEMIA AMONG THE PELICANS 


she prevented herself from screaming. I would have 
pulled the shark farther inshore, but this was impos- 
sible, and it was needless to expect him to move him- 
self into shallower water. So, quickly rolling up my 
trousers, I seized the axe, and waded in toward the 
floundering creature. 

“You needn’t be afraid to go right up to him,” said 
Euphemia. “So long as he doesn’t turn over on his 
back, he can’t bite you.” 

I had heard this bit of natural history before, but, 
nevertheless, I went no nearer to the shark than was 
necessary in order to whack him over the head with 
the axe. This I did several times, with such effect 
that he soon became a dead shark. 

When I came out triumphant, Euphemia seized me 
in her arms and kissed me. 

“This is perfectly splendid ! ” she said. “Who can 
show as big a fish as this one? None of the others 
can ever crow over you again.” 

“Until one of them catches a bigger shark,” I said. 

“Which none of them ever will,” said Euphemia, 
decidedly. “It isn’t in them.” 

The boatman was now seen approaching in his boat 
to take the party back to camp, and the “crew,” hav- 
ing returned to his duty, was sent off in a state of 
absolute amazement to tell the others to come and 
look at our prize. Our achievement certainly created 
a sensation. Even the boatman could find no words 
to express his astonishment. He waded in and fas- 
tened a rope to the shark’s tail, and then we all took 
hold and hauled the great fish ashore. 

“What is the good of it, now you have got it?” 
asked Quee. 


228 


EUPHEMIA AMONG THE PELICANS 


“ Glory is some good ! ” exclaimed Eupliemia. 

“And I’m going to have yon a belt made from a 
strip of its skin,” I said. 

This seemed to Eupliemia a capital idea. She 
would be delighted to have such a trophy of our deed, 
and the boatman was set to work to cut a suitable 
strip from the fish. And this belt, having been prop- 
erly tanned, lined, and fitted with buckles, is now one 
of her favorite adornments, and cost, I am bound to 
add, about three times as much as any handsome 
leather belt to be bought in the stores. 

Every day the Paying Teller, his wife, and Quee 
carefully set down in their note-books the weight of 
fish each individual had caught, with all necessary de- 
tails and specifications relating thereunto. Every day 
we wandered on the beach, or explored the tropical 
recesses of the palmetto woods. Every evening the 
boatman rowed over to the lighthouse to have a bit 
of gossip, and to take thither the fish we did not need. 
Every day the sun was soft and warm and the sky 
was blue. And every morning, going oceanward, and 
every evening, going landward, seven pelicans flew 
slowly by our camp. 

My greatest desire at this time was to shoot a peli- 
can, to have him properly prepared, and to take him 
to Rudder Grange, where, suitably set up, with his 
wings spread out, full seven feet from tip to tip, he 
would be a grand trophy and reminder of these In- 
dian River days. This was the reason why, nearly 
every morning and every evening, I took a shot at 
these seven pelicans. But I never hit one of them. 
We had only a shot-gun, and the pelicans flew at a 
precautionary distance. But, being such big birds, they 
229 


EUPHEMIA AMONG THE PELICANS 


always looked to me much nearer than they were. 
Euphemia earnestly desired that I should have a peli- 
can, and although she always wished I should hit one 
of these, she was always glad when I did not. 

“Think how mournful it would be,” she said, “if 
they should take their accustomed flights, morning 
and evening, with one of their number missing.” 

“Repeating Wordsworth’s verses, I suppose,” re- 
marked the little teacher. 

I had been disappointed in the number of pelicans 
we had seen. I knew that Florida was one of the 
homes of the pelican, and I had not expected to see 
these birds merely in small detachments. But our 
boatman assured me that on our return trip he would 
give me a chance of seeing and shooting as many pel- 
icans as I could desire. We would touch at Pelican 
Island, which was inhabited entirely by these birds, 
and whence the parties of seven were evidently sent 
out. 

When we had had all the fishing we wanted, we 
broke up our camp, and started northward. We had 
all been very happy and contented during our ten 
days’ sojourn in this delightful place. But when, at 
last, our departure was determined upon, the Paying 
Teller became possessed with a wild desire to go, go, 
go. There was some reason, never explained nor 
fully expressed, why no day, hour, minute, or second 
should be lost in speeding to the far Northwest. The 
boatman, too, impelled by what impulse I know not, 
seemed equally anxious to get home. As for the Pay- 
ing Teller’s group, it always did exactly as he 
wished. Therefore, although Euphemia and I would 
have been glad to linger here and there upon our 
230 


EUPHEMIA AMONG THE PELICANS 

homeward way, we could not gainsay the desire of 
the majority of the party, and consequently we sailed 
northward as fast as the wind and sometimes oars 
would take us. 

Only one cause for delay seemed tolerable to the 
Paying Teller. This was to stop at every post-office. 
We had received but one mail while in camp, which 
had been brought in a sail-boat from an office twenty 
miles away. But the Paying Teller had given and 
written the most intricate and complex directions for 
the retention or forwarding of his mail to every post- 
master in the country we had passed through, and 
these directions, as we afterwards found, had so puz- 
zled and unsettled the minds of these postmasters that 
for several weeks his letters had been moving like 
shuttlecocks up and down the St. John’s and Indian 
rivers — never stopping anywhere, never being deliv- 
ered, but crossing and recrossing each other as if they 
were imbued with their owner’s desire to go, go, go. 

Some of the post-offices where we stopped were 
lonely little buildings with no other habitation near. 
These we usually found shut up, being opened only on 
mail-days, and in such cases nothing could be done 
but to slip a protesting postal into the slit in the wall 
apparently intended for letters. Whether these pos- 
tals were eaten by rats or read by the postmasters, 
we never discovered. Wherever an office was found 
open, we left behind us an irate postmaster breathing 
all sorts of contemplated vengeance upon the dis- 
turbers of his peace. We heard of letters that had 
been sent north and sent south, but there never were 
any at the particular place where we happened to be, 
and I suppose that the accumulated mail of the Pay- 
231 


EUPHEMIA AMONG THE PELICANS 


ing Teller may for several years drop gradually upon 
him through the meshes of the dead-letter office. 

There were a great many points of interest which 
we had passed on our downward trip, the boatman hav- 
ing assured us that, with the wind we had, and which 
might cease at any moment, the great object was to 
reach Jupiter as soon as possible, and that we would 
stop at the interesting places on the way up. But 
now the wind, according to his reasoning, made it 
necessary that we should again push forward as fast 
as we could. And, as I said before, the irresistible 
attraction of the Northwest so worked upon the Pay- 
ing Teller that he was willing to pause nowhere, dur- 
ing the daytime, but at a post-office. At one place, 
however, I was determined to land. This was Pelican 
Island. The boatman, paying no attention to his 
promise to stop here and give me an opportunity to 
shoot one of these birds, declared, when near the 
place, that it would never do, with such a wind, to 
drop anchor for a trifle like a pelican. The Paying 
Teller and Quee also strongly objected to a stop. 
And, while the teacher had a great desire to investi- 
gate the subject of ornithology, especially when ex- 
emplified by such a subject as a pelican, she felt 
herself obliged to be loyal to her group, and so 
quietly gave her voice to go on. But I, supported by 
Euphemia, remained so firm that we anchored a short 
distance from Pelican Island. 

None of the others had any desire to go ashore, and 
so I, with the gun and Euphemia, took the boat and 
rowed to the island. While we were here the others 
determined to sail to the opposite side of the river to 
look for a little post-office, the existence of which the 
232 


EUPHEMIA AMONG THE PELICANS 


boatman bad not mentioned until it bad been deter- 
mined to make tbis stoppage bere. 

As we approached tbe island we saw hundreds of 
pelicans, some flying about, some sitting on trunks 
and branches of dead trees, and some waddling about 
on tbe shore. 

“You might as well shoot two of them,” said Eu- 
phemia, “and then we will select the better one to 
take to Rudder Grange.” 

The island was very boggy and muddy, and, before 
I had found a good place to land, and had taken up 
the gun from the bow of the boat, every pelican in 
sight took wing and flew away. I stood up and fired 
both barrels at the retreating flock. They swerved 
and flew oceanward, but not one of them fell. I 
helped Euphemia on shore, and then, gun in hand, I 
made my way as well as I could to the other end of 
the island. There might be some deaf old fellows left 
who had not made up their minds to fly. The 
ground was very muddy, and driftwood and under- 
brush obstructed my way. Still I pressed on, and 
went nearly half around the island, finding, however, 
not a single pelican. 

Soon I heard Euphemia’s voice, calling loud. She 
seemed to be about the centre of the island, and I ran 
toward her. 

“Eve got one !” I heard her cry, before I came in 
sight of her. She was sitting at the root of a crooked, 
dead tree. In front of her she held, one hand grasp- 
ing each leg, what seemed to me to be an ungainly 
and wingless goose. All about her the ground was 
soft and boggy. Her clothes were muddy, her face was 
red, and the creature she held was struggling violently. 

233 


EUPHEMIA AMONG THE PELICANS 


“What on earth have you got?” I exclaimed, ap- 
proaching as near as I could, “and how did you get 
out there ? ” 

“Don’t you come any closer ! ” she cried. “You’ll 
sink up to your waist ! I got here by treading on the 
little hummocks and holding on to that dead branch. 
But don’t you take hold of it, for you’ll break it off, 
and then I can’t get back.” 

“But what is that thing? ” I repeated. 

“It’s a young pelican,” she replied. “I found a lot 
of nests on the ground over there, and this was in one 
of them. I chased it all about, until it flopped out 
here and hid itself on the other side of this tree. 
Then I came out quietly and caught it. But how am 
I going to get it to you?” 

This seemed, indeed, a problem. Euphemia de- 
clared that she needed both hands to work her way 
back by the means of the long, horizontal limb which 
had assisted her passage to the place where she sat, 
and she also needed both hands to hold her prize. It 
was likewise plain that I could not get to her. Indeed, 
I could not see how her light steps had taken her over 
the soft and marshy ground that lay between us. I 
suggested that she should throw the pelican to me. 
This she declined to do. 

“I could never throw it so far,” she said, “ and it 
would surely get away. I don’t want to lose this peli- 
can, for I believe it is the last one on the island. If 
there are other young ones, they have scuttled off by 
this time, and I should dreadfully hate to go back to 
the yacht without any pelican at all.” 

“I don’t call that much of one,” I said. 

234 


EUPHEMIA AMONG THE PELICANS 


“It’s a real pelican, for all that,” she replied, “and 
about as curious a bird as I ever saw. Its wings won’t 
stretch out seven feet, to be sure.” 

“About seven inches,” I suggested. 

“But it is a great deal easier to carry a young one 
like this,” she persisted, “and I expect a baby pelican 
is a much more uncommon sight in the North than a 
grown one.” 

“No doubt of it,” I said. “We must keep him, now 
you’ve got him. Can’t you kill him? ” 

“I’ve no way of killing him,” returned Euphemia. 
“I wonder if you could shoot him if I were to hold 
him out.” 

This, with a shot-gun, I positively declined to do. 
Even if I had had a rifle, I suggested that she might 
swerve. For a few moments we remained nonplussed. 
I could not get to Euphemia at all, and she could not 
get to me unless she released her bird, and this she 
was determined not to do. 

“Euphemia,” I said presently, “the ground seems 
hard a little way in front of you. If you step over 
there, I will go out on this strip, which seems pretty 
solid. Then I’ll be near enough to you for you to 
swing the bird to me, and I’ll catch hold of him.” 

Euphemia arose and did as I told her, and we soon 
found ourselves about six feet apart. She took the 
bird by one leg and swung it toward me. With out- 
stretched arm I caught it by the other foot, but, as I 
did so, I noticed that Euphemia was growing shorter, 
and also felt myself sinking in the bog. Instantly I 
entreated Euphemia to stand perfectly still, for, if we 
struggled or moved, there was no knowing into what 
235 


EUPHEMIA AMONG THE PELICANS 


more dreadful depths we might get. Euphemia 
obeyed me, and stood quite still, but I could feel that 
she clutched the pelican with desperate vigor. 

“How much farther down do you think we shall 
sink ? ” she asked, her voice trembling a little. 

“Not much farther,” I said. “I am sure there is 
firm ground beneath us, but it will not do to move. 
If we should fall down, we might not be able to get 
up again.” 

“How glad I am,” she said, “that we are not en- 
tirely separated, even if it is only a baby pelican that 
joins us ! ” 

“Indeed, I am glad ! ” I said, giving the warm 
pressure to the pelican’s leg that I would have given 
to Euphemia’s hand, if I could have reached her. 
Euphemia looked at me so confidently that I could 
but believe that, in some magnetic way, that pressure 
had been transmitted through the bird. 

“Ho you think they will come back ?” she said directly. 

“Oh, yes,” I replied. “There’s no manner of doubt 
of that.” 

“They’ll be dreadfully cross,” she said. 

“I shouldn’t wonder,” I replied. “But it makes 
very little difference to me whether they are or not.” 

“It ought to make a difference to you,” said Eu- 
phemia. “They might injure us very much.” 

“If they tried anything of the kind,” I replied, 
“they’d find it worse for them than for us.” 

“That is boasting,” said Euphemia, a little re- 
proachfully, “and it does not sound like you.” 

I made no answer to this, and then she asked : 

“What do you think they will do when they 
come ? ” 


236 


EUPHEMIA AMONG THE PELICANS 

“I think they will put a plank out here and pull 
us out.” 

Euphemia looked at me an instant, and then her 
eyes filled with tears. 

“Oh, dear!” she exclaimed, “it’s dreadful! You 
know they couldn’t do it. Your mind is giving 
way ! ” 

She sobbed, and I could feel the tremor run through 
the pelican. 

“What do you mean?” I cried anxiously. “My 
mind giving way ? ” 

“Yes — yes,” she sobbed. “If you were in your 
right senses— you’d never think— that pelicans could 
bring a plank.” 

I looked at her in astonishment. 

“Pelicans ! ” I exclaimed. “Did you think I meant 
the pelicans were coming back ? ” 

“Of course,” she said. “That’s what I was asking 
you about.” 

“I wasn’t thinking of pelicans at all,” I answered. 
“I was talking of the people in the yacht.” 

Euphemia looked at me, and then the little pelican 
between us began to shake violently as we laughed. 

“I know people sometimes do lose their minds when 
they get into great danger,” she said apologetically. 

“Hello ! ” came a voice from the water. “What 
are you laughing about ? ” 

“Come and see,” I shouted back, “and perhaps you 
will laugh, too.” 

The three men came. They had to wade ashore, 
and when they came they laughed. They brought 
a plank, and, with a good deal of trouble, they drew us 
out. But Euphemia would not let go of her leg of the 
237 


EUPHEMIA AMONG THE PELICANS 


little pelican until she was sure I had a tight hold of 
mine. 

Day after day we now sailed northward, until we 
reached the little town at which we had embarked. 
Here we discarded our blue flannels and three half- 
grown beards, and slowly made our way through 
woods and lakes and tortuous streams to the upper 
waters of the St. John’s. In this region the popula- 
tion of the river shores seemed to consist entirely of 
alligators, in which monsters Euphemia was greatly 
interested. But she seldom got a near view of one, 
for the sportsmen on our little steamer blazed away 
at every alligator as soon as it came into distant sight, 
and, although the ugly creatures were seldom hit, 
they made haste to tumble into the water or disap- 
pear among the tall reeds. Euphemia was very much 
annoyed at this. 

“I shall never get a good, close look at an alligator 
at all,” she said. “I am going to speak to the cap- 
tain.” 

The captain, a big, good-natured man, listened to 
her, and entirely sympathized with her. 

“Tom,” said he to the pilot, “when you see another 
big ’gator on shore, don’t sing out to nobody, but call 
me, and slow up.” 

It was not long before chocolate-colored Tom called 
to the captain, and rang the bell to lessen speed. 

“Gentlemen,” said the captain, walking forward to 
the group of sportsmen, “there’s a big ’gator ahead 
there, but don’t none of you fire at him. He’s copy- 
righted.” 

The men with the guns did not understand him, but 
none of them fired, and Euphemia and the other 
238 


EUPHEMIA AMONG THE PELICANS 

ladies soon had the satisfaction of seeing an enormous 
alligator lying on the bank, within a dozen yards of 
the boat. The great creature raised its head, and 
looked at us in apparent amazement at not being shot 
at. Then, probably considering that we did not know 
the customs of the river, or were out of ammunition, 
he slowly slipped away among the reeds with an air 
as if, like Mr. Turveydrop, he had done his duty in 
showing himself, and if we did not take advantage of 
it, it was no affair of his. 

“If we only had a fellow like that for a trophy !” 
ejaculated Euphemia. 

“He’d do very well for a trophy,” I answered, “but 
if, in order to get him, I had to hold him by one leg 
while you held him by another, I should prefer a 
baby pelican.” 

Our trip down the St. John’s met with no obstacles 
except those occasioned by the Paying Teller’s return 
tickets. He had provided himself and his group with 
all sorts of return tickets from the various points he 
had expected to visit in Florida. These were good 
only on particular steamboats, and could be used only 
to go from one particular point to another. Fortu- 
nately, he had lost several of them, but there were 
enough left to give us a good deal of trouble. We 
did not wish to break up the party, and consequently 
we embarked and disembarked whenever the Paying 
Teller’s group did so. And thus, in time, we all 
reached that wide-spread and sandy city which serves 
for the gate of Florida. 

From here the Paying Teller and his group, with 
complicated tickets, the determinate scope and pur- 
pose of which no man living could be expected to 
239 


EUPHEMIA AMONG THE PELICANS 


understand, hurried wildly toward the far Northwest, 
while we, in slower fashion, returned to Rudder 
Grange. 

There, in a place of honor over the dining-room door, 
stands the baby pelican, its little flippers wide out- 
stretched. 

“How often I think,” Euphemia sometimes says, 
“of that moment of peril, when the only actual bond 
of union between us was that little pelican ! ” 


240 


THE RUDDER GRANGERS IN 
ENGLAND 



THE RUDDER GRANGERS IN 
ENGLAND 


I T was mainly due to Pomona that we went to 
Europe at all. For years Euphemia and I had been 
anxious to visit the enchanted lands on the other side of 
the Atlantic, but the obstacles had always been very 
great, and the matter had been indefinitely postponed. 
Pomona and Jonas were still living with us, and their 
little girl was about two years old. Pomona contin- 
ued to read a great deal, but her husband’s influence 
had diverted her mind toward works of history and 
travel, and these she devoured with eager interest. 
But she had not given up her old fancy for romance. 
Nearly everything she read was mingled in her mind 
with middle-age legends and tales of strange adven- 
ture. Euphemia’s frequent reference to a trip to 
Europe had fired Pomona’s mind, and she was now 
more wildly anxious for the journey than any of us. 
She believed that it would entirely free Jonas from 
the chills and fever that still seemed to permeate 
his being. Besides this, what unutterable joy to 
tread the sounding pavements of those old castles of 
which she had so often read ! Pomona further per- 
ceived that my mental and physical systems required 
the rest and change of scene which could be given 
243 


RUDDER GRANGERS IN ENGLAND 


only by a trip to Europe. When this impression had 
been produced upon Euphemia’s mind, the matter, to 
all intents and purposes, was settled. A tenant, who, 
I suspect, was discovered and urged forward by the 
indefatigable Pomona, made an application for a 
year’s lease of our house and farm. In a business 
view I found I could make the journey profitable, 
and there seemed to be no reason why we should not 
go, and go now. 

It appeared to be accepted as a foregone conclusion 
by Euphemia and Pomona that the latter, with her 
husband and child, should accompany us. But of this 
I could not, at first, see the propriety. 

“We shall not want servants on a trip like that,” I 
said, “and although I like Jonas and Pomona very 
much, they are not exactly the people I should prefer 
as travelling companions.” 

“If you think you are going to leave Pomona be- 
hind,” said Euphemia, “you are vastly mistaken. 
Oceans and continents are free to her, and she will 
follow us at a distance, if we don’t let her go with us. 
She was quite content not to go with us to Florida, 
but she is just one tingle from head to foot to go to 
Europe. We have talked the whole thing over, and 
I know that she will be of the greatest possible use 
and comfort to me in ever so many ways. And Jonas 
will be needed to take care of the baby. Jonas has 
money, and they will pay a great part of their own 
expenses, and will not cost us much, and you needn’t 
be afraid that Pomona will make us ashamed of our- 
selves, if we happen to be talking to the Dean of 
Westminster or the Archbishop of Canterbury, by 
pushing herself into the conversation.” 

244 


RUDDER GRANGERS IN ENGLAND 


“Indeed/’ said I, “if we ever happen to be in- 
veigled into a confab with those dignitaries, I hope 
Pomona will come to the front and take my place.” 

The only person not entirely satisfied with the pro- 
posed journey was Jonas. 

“I don’t like traipsin’ round,” said he, “from place 
to place, and never did. If I could go to some one 
spot, and stay there with the child, while the rest of 
you made trips, I’d be satisfied, but I don’t like 
keepin’ on the steady go.” 

This plan was duly considered, and the suitability 
of certain points was discussed. London was not be- 
lieved sufficiently accessible for frequent return trips, 
Paris could scarcely be called very central, Naples 
would not be suitable at all times of the year, and 
Cairo was a little too far eastward. A number of 
minor places were suggested, but Jonas announced 
that he had thought of a capital location, and being 
eagerly asked to name it, he mentioned Newark, 
New Jersey. 

“I’d feel at home there,” he said, “and it’s about as 
central as any place, when you come to look on the 
map of the world.” 

But he was not allowed to remain in his beloved 
New Jersey, and we took him with us to Europe. 

We did not, like the rest of the passengers on the 
steamer, go directly from Liverpool to London, but 
stopped for a couple of days in the quaint old town of 
Chester. “If we don’t see it now,” said Euphemia, “we 
never shall see it. When we once start back we shall 
be raving distracted to get home, and I wouldn’t miss 
Chester for anything.” 

“There is an old wall there,” said the enthusiastic 
245 


RUDDER GRANGERS IN ENGLAND 


Pomona to her husband, “built by Julius Caesar before 
the Eomans became Catholics, that you kin walk on 
all round the town, an 7 a tower on it which the King 
of England stood on to see his army defeated, though, 
of course, it wasn’t put up for that purpose, besides 
more old-timenesses which the book tells of than we 
can see in a week.” 

“I hope,” said Jonas, wearily shifting the child 
from one arm to the other, “that there’ll be some 
good place there to sit down.” 

When we reached Chester, we went directly to the 
inn called the “Gentle Boar,” which was selected by 
Euphemia entirely on account of its name, and we 
found it truly a quaint and cosey little house. Every- 
thing was early English and delightful. The coffee- 
rooms, the barmaids, the funny little apartments, the 
old furniture, and “a general air of the Elizabethan 
era,” as Euphemia remarked. 

“I should almost call it Henryan,” said Pomona, 
gazing about her in rapt wonderment. 

We soon set out on our expeditions of sight-seeing, 
but^we did not keep together. Euphemia and I made 
our way to the old cathedral. The ancient verger 
who took us about the edifice was obliged to show us 
everything, Euphemia being especially anxious to see 
the stall in the choir which had belonged to Charles 
Kingsley, and was much disturbed to find that under 
the seat the monks of the fifteenth century had carved 
the subject of one of Baron Munchausen’s most im- 
probable tales. 

“Of course,” said she, “they did not know that 
Charles Kingsley was to have this stall, or they would 
have cut something more appropriate.” 

246 


RUDDER GRANGERS IN ENGLAND 


“ Those old monks ’ad a good deal of fun in them,” 
said the verger, “hand they were particular fond of 
showing up quarrels between men and their wives, 
which they could do, you see, without ’urting each 
other’s feelings. These queer carvings are hunder 
the seats, which turn hup in this way, hand I’ve no 
doubt they looked at them most of the time they were 
kneeling on the cold floor saying their long Latin 
prayers.” 

“Yes, indeed ! ” said Euphemia. “It must have 
been a great comfort to the poor fellows.” 

“We went all through that cathedral,” exclaimed 
Pomona, when she came in the next day. “The old 
virgin took us everywhere.” 

“Verger,” exclaimed Euphemia. 

“Well, he looked so like a woman in his long 
gown,” said Pomona, “I don’t wonder I mixed him. 
We put two shillin’s in his little box, though one was 
enough, as I told Jonas, and then he took us round 
and pointed out all the beautiful carvin’s and things 
on the choir, the transits, and the nave, but when 
Jonas stopped before the carved Agger of the devil 
chawin’ up a sinner, and asked if that was the transit 
of a knave, the old feller didn’t know what he meant. 
An’ then we wandered alone through them ruined 
cloisters and subterraneal halls, an’ old tombstones of 
the past, till I felt I don’t know how. There was a 
girl in Hew Jersey who used to put on airs because 
her family had lived in one place for a hundred years. 
When I git back I’ll laugh that girl to scorn.” 

After two days of delight in this quaint old town we 
took the train London ward. Without consultation 
Jonas bought tickets for himself and wife, while I 
247 


RUDDER GRANGERS IN ENGLAND 


bought Euphemia’s and mine. Consequently, our ser- 
vants travelled first-class, while we went in a second- 
class carriage. We were all greatly charmed with 
the beautiful garden country through which we 
passed. It was harvest- time, and Jonas was much 
impressed by the large crops gathered from the little 
fields. 

“I might try to do something of that kind when I go 
back,” he afterwards said, “but I expect I’d have to 
dig a little hole for each grain of wheat, and hoe it, 
and water it, and tie the blade to a stick if it was 
weakly.” 

“An’ a nice, easy time you’d have of it,” said Po- 
mona, “for you might plant your wheat-field round a 
stump, and set there, and farm all summer, without 
once gettin’ up.” 

“And that is Windsor ! ” exclaimed Euphemia, as 
we passed within view of that royal castle. “And 
there lives the sovereign of our mother-country ! ” 

I was trying to puzzle out in what relationship to 
the sovereign this placed us, when Euphemia con- 
tinued : 

“I am bound to go to Windsor Castle ! I have ex- 
amined into every style of housekeeping, French flats 
and everything, and I must see how the Queen lives. 
I expect to get ever so many ideas.” 

“All right,” said I. “And we will visit the royal 
stables, too, for I intend to get a new buggy when we 
get back.” 

We determined that on reaching London we would 
go directly to lodgings, not only because this was a 
more economical way of living, but because it was 
248 


RUDDER GRANGERS IN ENGLAND 


the way in which many of Euphemia’s favorite heroes 
and heroines had lived in London. 

“I want to keep house/ 7 she said, “in the same way 
that Charles and Mary Lamb did. We will toast a 
bit of muffin or a potted sprat, and we’ll have a 
hamper of cheese and a tankard of ale, just like 
those old English poets and writers.” 

“I think you are wrong about the hamper of 
cheese,” I said. “It couldn’t have been as much as 
that. But I have no doubt we’ll have a jolly time.” 

We got into a four-wheeled cab, Jonas on the seat 
with the driver, and the luggage on top. I gave the 
man a card with the address of the house to which we 
had been recommended. There was a number, the 
name of a street, the name of a place, the name of a 
square, and initials denoting the quarter of the town. 

“It will confuse the poor man dreadfully,” said Eu- 
phemia. “It would have been a great deal better 
just to have said where the house was.” 

The man, however, drove to the given address with- 
out mistake. The house was small, but as there were 
no other lodgers, there was room enough for us. Eu- 
phemia was much pleased with the establishment. 
The house was very well furnished, and she had ex- 
pected to find things old and stuffy, as London lodg- 
ings always were in the books she had read. 

“But if the landlady will only steal our tea,” she 
said, “it will make it seem more like the real thing.” 

As we intended to stay some time in London, where 
I had business to transact for the firm with which I 
was engaged, we immediately began to make ourselves 
as much at home as possible. Pomona, assisted by 
249 


RUDDER GRANGERS IN ENGLAND 


Jonas, undertook at once the work of the house. To 
this the landlady, who kept a small servant, some- 
what objected, as it had been her custom to attend to 
the wants of her lodgers. 

“But what’s the good of Jonas an’ me bein’ here,” 
said Pomona to us, “if we don’t do the work? Of 
course, if there was other lodgers, that would be 
different, but as there’s only our own family, where’s 
the good of that woman and her girl doin’ anything? ” 

And so, as a sort of excuse for her being in Europe, 
she began to get the table ready for supper, and sent 
Jonas out to see if there was any place where he could 
buy provisions. Euphemia and I were not at all cer- 
tain that the good woman of the house would be satis- 
fied with this state of things, but still, as Jonas and 
Pomona were really our servants, it seemed quite 
proper that they should do our work. And so we did 
not interfere, although Euphemia found it quite sad, 
she said, to see the landlady standing idly about, gaz- 
ing solemnly upon Pomona as she dashed from place 
to place, engaged with her household duties. 

After we had been in the house for two or three 
days, Pomona came into our sitting-room one evening, 
and made a short speech. 

“I’ve settled matters with the woman here,” she 
said, “an’ I think you’ll like the way I’ve done it. I 
couldn’t stand her follerin’ me about, an’ sayin’ ’ow 
they did things in Hingland, while her red-faced girl 
was a-spendin’ the days on the airy steps, a-lookin’ 
through the railin’s. ‘Now, Mrs. Bowlin’,’ says I, 
‘it’ll just be the ruin of you an’ the death of me if 
you keep on makin’ a picter of yourself like that 
lonely Indian a-sittin’ on a pinnacle in the jographies, 
250 


RUDDER GRANGERS IN ENGLAND 


watchin’ the inroads of civilization, with a locomotive 
an’ a cog-wheel in front, an’ the buffalo an’ the grisly 
a-disappearin’ in the distance. Now, it’ll be much 
better for all of us,’ says I, ‘if you’ll git down from 
your peak an’ try to make up your mind that the 
world has got to move. Ain’t there some place where 
you kin go an’ be quiet an’ comfortable, an’ not 
a- woundin’ your proud spirit a-watchin’ me bake hot 
rolls for breakfast an’ sich ? ’ An’ then she says she’d 
begun to think pretty much that way herself, an’ 
that she had a sister a-livin’ down in the Sussex Mews, 
back of Gresham Terrace, Camberwell Square, Hank- 
berry Place, N. W. by N., an’ she thought she might 
as well go there an’ stay while we was here. An’ so 
I says that was just the thing, an’ the sooner done 
the happier she’d be. An’ I went up -stairs an’ 
helped her pack her trunk, which is a tin one, which 
she calls her box, an’ I got her a cab, an’ she’s gone.” 

“What ! ” I cried, “gone ! Has she given up her 
house entirely to us?” 

“For the time bein’ she has,” answered Pomona, 
“for she saw very well it was better thus, an’ she’s 
cornin’ every week to git her money, an’ to see when 
we’re goin’ to give notice. An’ the small girl has 
been sent back to the country.” 

It was impossible for Euphemia and myself to coun- 
tenance this outrageous piece of eviction. But in 
answer to our exclamations of surprise and reproach, 
Pomona merely remarked that she had done it for the 
woman’s own good, and, as she was perfectly satisfied, 
she didn’t suppose there was any harm done, and, at 
any rate, it would be “lots nicer ” for us. And then 
she asked Euphemia what she was going to have for 
251 


RUDDER GRANGERS IN ENGLAND 


breakfast the next morning, so that Jonas could go 
out to the different mongers and get the things. 

“Now,” said Euphemia, when Pomona had gone 
down-stairs, “I really feel as if I had a foothold on 
British soil. It doesn’t seem as if it was quite right, 
but it is perfectly splendid.” 

And so it was. From that moment we set up an 
English Rudder Grange in the establishment which 
Pomona had thus rudely wrenched, as it were, from 
the claws of the British lion. We endeavored to 
live as far as possible in the English style, because we 
wanted to try the manners and customs of every 
country. We had tea for breakfast and ale for 
luncheon, and we ate shrimps, prawns, sprats, save- 
loys, and Yarmouth bloaters. We “took in the 
i Times,’ ” and, to a certain extent, we endeavored to 
cultivate the broad vowels. Some of these things we 
did not like, but we felt bound to allow them a fair 
trial. 

We did not give ourselves up to sight-seeing, as we 
had done at Chester, because now there was plenty of 
time to see London at our leisure. In the mornings 
I attended to my business, and in the afternoons Eu- 
phemia and I generally went out to visit some of the 
lions of the grand old city. 

Pomona and Jonas also went out whenever a time 
could be conveniently arranged, which was done 
nearly every day, for Euphemia was anxious they 
should see everything. They almost always took 
their child, and to this Euphemia frequently objected. 

“What’s the good,” she said, “of carrying a baby 
not two years old to the Tower of London, the British 
Museum, and the Chapel of Henry VII? She can’t 
252 


RUDDER GRANGERS IN ENGLAND 


take any interest in the smothered princes, or the 
Assyrian remnants. If I am at home, I can look after 
her as well as not.” 

“But you see, ma’am,” said Pomona, “we don’t ex- 
pect the baby’ll ever come over here ag’in, an’ when 
she gits older I’ll tell her all about these things, an’ 
it’ll expan’ her intelleck a lot more when she feels 
she’s seed ’em all without knowin’ it. To be sure, the 
monnyments of bygone days don’t allers agree with 
her, for Jone set her down on the tomb of Chaucer 
the other day, an’ her little legs got as cold as the 
tomb itself, an’ I told him that there was too big a 
difference between a tomb nigh four hundred years 
old, an’ a small baby which don’t date back two years, 
for them to be sot together that way, an’ he promised 
to be more careful after that. He gouged a little 
piece out of Chaucer’s tomb, an’ as we went home we 
bought a copy of the old gentleman’s poems, so as we 
could see what reason there was for keepin’ him so 
long, an’ at night I read Jone two of ‘The Canterbury 
Tales.’ ‘You wouldn’t ’a’ thought,’ says Jone, ‘jus’ 
by lookin’ at that little piece of plaster, that the old 
fellow could ’a’ got up such stories as them.’ ” 

“What I want to see more’n anything else,” said 
Pomona to us, one day, “is a real lord, or some kind 
of nobleman of high degree. I’ve allers loved to read 
about ’em in books, and I’d rather see one close to 
than all the tombs and crypts and lofty domes you 
could rake together. An’ I don’t want to see ’em, 
neither, in the streets, nor yet in a House of Parlia- 
ment, which ain’t in session, for there, I don’t believe, 
dressin’ in common clothes as they do, that I could 
tell ’em from other people. What I want is to pene- 
253 


RUDDER GRANGERS IN ENGLAND 


trate into the home of one of ’em, an 7 see him as he 
really is. It’s only there that his noble blood’ll come 
out.” 

“ Pomona,” cried Euphemia, in accents of alarm, 
“ don’t yon try penetrating into any nobleman’s home. 
You will get yourself into trouble, and the rest of us, 
too.” 

“Oh, I’m not a-goin’ to git you into any trouble, 
ma’am,” said Pomona. “You needn’t be afeared of 
that.” 

A few days after this, as Euphemia and I were 
going to the Tower of London in a hansom cab,— and 
it was one of Euphemia’s greatest delights to be 
bowled over the smooth London pavements in one of 
these vehicles, with the driver out of sight, and the 
horse in front of us just as if we were driving our- 
selves, only without any of the trouble, and on every 
corner one of the names of the streets we had read 
about in Dickens and Thackeray, and with the Samp- 
son Brasses, and the Pecksniffs, and the Mrs. Gamps, 
and the Guppys, and the Sir Leicester Dedlocks, and 
the Becky Sharps, and the Pendennises, all walking 
about just as natural as in the novels,— we were sur- 
prised to see Pomona hurrying along the sidewalk 
alone. The moment our eyes fell upon her, a feeling 
of alarm arose within us. Where was she going with 
such an intent purpose in her face, and without 
Jonas'? She was walking westward, and we were 
going to the east. At Euphemia’s request, I stopped 
the cab, jumped out, and ran after her, but she had 
disappeared in the crowd. 

“She is up to mischief,” said Euphemia. 

But it was no use to worry our minds on the sub- 
254 


RUDDER GRANGERS IN ENGLAND 


ject, and we soon forgot, in the ancient wonders of 
the Tower, the probable eccentricities of our modern 
handmaid. 

We returned. Night came on, but Pomona was still 
absent. Jonas did not kijow where she was, and was 
very much troubled. And the baby, which had been 
so skilfully kept in the background by its mother 
that, so far, it had never annoyed us at all, now began 
to cry, and would not be comforted. Euphemia, with 
the assistance of Jonas, prepared the evening meal, 
and when we had nearly eaten it, Pomona came home. 
Euphemia asked no questions,— although she was 
burning with curiosity to know where Pomona had 
been,— considering that it was that young woman’s 
duty to inform her without being asked. 

When Pomona came in to wait on us, she acted as 
if she expected to be questioned, and was perfectly 
willing to answer, but Euphemia stood upon her dig- 
nity, and said nothing. At last Pomona could endure 
it no longer, and standing with a tray in her hand, 
she exclaimed : 

“I’m sorry I made you help git the dinner, ma’am, 
an’ I wouldn’t ’a’ done it for anything, but the fact 
is, I’ve been to see a lord, an’ was kep’ late.” 

“What ! ” cried Euphemia, springing to her feet. 
“You don’t mean that ! ” 

And I was so amazed that I sat and looked at Po- 
mona without saying a word. 

“Yes,” cried Pomona, her eyes sparkling with ex- 
citement, “I’ve seen a lord, and trod his floors, an’ 
I’ll tell you all about it. You know I was boun’ to 
do it, an’ I wanted to go alone, for if Jone was with 
me he’d be sure to put in some of his queer sayin’s, an’, 
255 


RUDDER GRANGERS IN ENGLAND 


ten to one, hurt the man’s feelin’s, an’ cut off the in- 
terview. An’ as Jone said this afternoon he felt tired, 
with some small creeps in his back, an’ didn’t care to 
go out, I knew my time had come, an’ said I’d go for 
a walk. Day before yesterday I went up to a police- 
man, an’ I asked him if he could tell me if a lord, or a 
earl, or a duke lived anywhere near here. First he 
took me for crazy, an’ then he began to ask questions 
which he thought was funny, but I kep’ stiff to the 
mark, an’ I made him tell me where a lord did live— 
about five blocks from here. So I fixed things all 
ready, an’ to-day I went there.” 

“You did n’t have the assurance to suppose he’d see 
you ? ” cried Euphemia. 

“No, indeed, I hadn’t,” said Pomona, “at least, 
under common circumstances. You may be sure I 
racked my brains enough to know what I should do 
to meet him face to face. It wouldn’t do to go in the 
common way, such as ringin’ at the front door an’ 
askin’ for him, an’ then offerin’ to sell him furniter- 
polish for his pianner-legs. I knowed well enough 
that any errand like that would only bring me face 
to face with his bailiff, or his master of hounds, or 
something of that kind. So, at last, I got a plan of 
my own, an’ I goes up the steps an’ rings the bell, 
an’ when the flunky, with more of an air of gen’ral 
upliftedness about him than any one I’d seen yet, ex- 
cep’ Nelson on top of his pillar, opened the door an’ 
looked at me, I asked him : 

“‘Is Earl Cobden in?’ 

“At this the man opened his eyes an’ remarked : 

“‘What uv it if he is? ’ 

“Then I answers firmly : 

256 


RUDDER GRANGERS IN ENGLAND 


“ ‘If he’s in, I want yer to take him this letter, an’ 
I’ll wait here.’ ” 

“You don’t mean to say,” cried Euphemia, “that 
you wrote the earl a letter?” 

“Yes, I did,” continued Pomona, “and at first the 
man didn’t seem inclined to take it. But I held it 
out so steady that he took it an’ put it on a little 
tray,— whether nickel-plated or silver I couldn’t make 
out,— an’ carried it up the widest an’ splendidest pair 
o’ stairs that I ever see in a house jus’ intended to be 
lived in. When he got to the fust landin’ he met a 
gentleman, an’ give him the letter. When I saw 
this I was took aback, for I thought it was his lord- 
ship a-comin’ down, an’ I didn’t want to have no in- 
terview with a earl at his front door. But the second 
glance I took at him showed me that it wasn’t him. 
He opened it, notwithstanding an’ read it all through 
from beginnin’ to end. When he had done it he 
looked down at me, an’ then he went back up -stairs, 
a-follered by the flunk, which last pretty soon came 
down ag’in an’ told me I was to go up. I don’t think 
I ever felt so much like a wringed-out dish-cloth as I 
did when I went up them palatial stairs. But I tried 
to think of things that would prop me up. 1 P’r’aps,’ I 
thought, ( my ancient ancestors came to this land with 
hisn. Who knows ? An’ I might ’a’ been switched off 
on some female line, an’ so lost the name an’ estates. 
At any rate, be brave ! ’ With such thoughts as these 
I tried to stiffen my legs, figgeratively speakin’. We 
went through two or three rooms (I hadn’t time to 
count ’em), an’ then I was showed into the lofty pres- 
ence of the earl. He was standin’ by the fireplace, an’ 
the minnit my eyes lit upon him I knowed it was him.” 

257 


RUDDER GRANGERS IN ENGLAND 


“Why, how was that? ” cried Euphemia and myself, 
almost in the same breath. 

“I knowed him by his wax figger,” continued Po- 
mona, “which Jone an’ I see at Madame Tussaud’s 
Waxworks. They’ve got all the head people of these 
days there now, as well as the old kings and the 
pizeners. The clothes wasn’t exactly the same, though 
very good on each, an’ there was more of an air of 
shortenin’ of the spine in the wax figger than in the 
other one. But the likeness was awful strikin’. 

“‘Well, my good woman,’ says he, a-holdin’ my 
open letter in his hand, “so you want to see a lord, 
do you?” 

“What on earth did you write to him?” exclaimed 
Euphemia. “You mustn’t go on a bit further until 
you have told what was in your letter.” 

“Well,” said Pomona, “as near as I can remember, 
it was like this : 

u 4 William, Lord Cobden, Earl of Sorsetshire an’ 
Derry. 

Dear Sir : Bein’ brought up under republican institutions, 
in the land of the free, ’ — 

I left out ‘the home of the brave,’ because there 
wasn’t no use crowin’ about that jus’ then,— 

‘I haven’t had no oppertunity of meetin’ with a in- 
dividual of lordly blood. Ever since I was a small girl 
takin’ books from the circulatin’ libery, an’ obliged to 
read out loud with divided sillerbels, I’ve drank in every 
word of the tales of lords an’ other nobles of high degree 
that the little shops where I gen’ rally got my books— an’ 
some with the pages out at the most excitin’ parts— con- 
tained. An’ so I asks you now, Sir Lord, — ’ 

258 


RUDDER GRANGERS IN ENGLAND 


I did put ‘ humbly/ but I scratched that out, bein’ 
an American woman,— 

‘ to do me the favor of a short audience. Then, when I 
reads about noble earls an’ dukes in their brilliant lit 
halls an’ castles, or mounted on their champin’ chargers, 
a-leadin’ their trusty hordes to victory amid the glitter- 
ing minarets of fame, I’ll know what they looks like.’ 
An’ then I signed my name. 

“‘Yes, sir,’ says I, in answer to his earlship’s ques- 
tion,” said Pomona, taking up her story, ‘I did want 
to see one, upon my word.’ 

“‘An’ now that you have seen him,’ says he, ‘what 
do you think of him? ’ 

“Now, I had made up my mind before I entered this 
ducal pile, or put my foot on one ancestral stone, 
that I’d be square an’ honest through the whole busi- 
ness, an’ not try no counterfeit presentiments with 
the earl. So I says to him : 

“‘The fust thing I thinks is that you’ve got on the 
nicest suit of clothes that I’ve ever seed yit, not bein’ 
exactly Sunday clothes, an’ yit fit for company, an’ if 
money can buy ’em,— an’ men’s clothes is cheap 
enough here, dear only knows,— I’m goin’ to have a 
suit jus’ like it for Jone, my husband.’ It was a kind 
o’ brown mixed stuff, with a little spot of red in it 
here an’ there, an’ was about as gay for plain goods, 
an’ as plain for gay goods, as anythin’ could be, an’ 
’twas easy enough to see that it was all wool. ‘Of 
course,’ says I, ‘ Jone’ll have his coat made different 
in front, for single-breasted an’ a-buttonin’ so high up 
is a’most too stylish for him, specially as fashions ’ud 
change afore the coat was wore out. But I needn’t 
bother your earlship about that.’ 

259 


RUDDER GRANGERS IN ENGLAND 

“‘ An’ so/ says he, an’ I imagine I see an air of sad- 
ness steal over his features, ‘it’s my clothes, after all, 
that interest yon? ’ 

“‘Oh, no,’ says I, ‘I mention them because they 
come up fust. There is, no doubt, qualities of mind 
an’ body—’ 

“‘Well, we won’t go into that,’ said his earlship, 
‘an’ I want to ask you a question. I suppose you 
represent the middle class in your country ? ’ 

“‘I don’t know ’zactly where society splits with us,’ 
says I, ‘but I guess I’m somewhere nigh the crack.’ 

“‘Now don’t you reelly believe,’ says he, ‘that you 
an’ the people of your class would be happier, an’ 
feel safer, politically speakin’, if they had among ’em 
a aristocracy to which they could look up to in times 
of trouble, as their nat’ral-born gardeens? I ask yer 
this because I want to know for myself what are the 
reel sentiments of yer people.’ 

“‘Well, sir,’ says I, ‘when your work is done, an’ 
your kitchen cleaned up, an’ your lamp lit, a lord or 
a duke is jus’ tiptop to read about, if the type ain’t 
too fine an’ the paper mean beside, which it often is 
in the ten-cent books, but further than this, I must 
say, we ain’t got no use for ’em.’ At that he kind o’ 
steps back, an’ looks as if he was goin’ to say some- 
thin’, but I puts in quick : ‘But you mustn’t think, 
my earl,’ says I, ‘that we undervallers you. When 
we remembers the field of Agincourt, an’ Chevy 
Chase, an’ the Tower of London, with the block on 
which three lords was beheaded, with the very cuts 
in it which the headsman made when he chopped ’em 
off, as well as two crooked ones a-showin’ his bad licks, 
which little did he think history would preserve for- 
260 


RUDDER GRANGERS IN ENGLAND 


ever, an’ the old Guildhall, where down in the an- 
cient crypt is a-hangin’ our Declaration of Indepen- 
dence along with the Roman pots and kittles dug up 
in London streets, we can’t forgit that if it hadn’t ’a’ 
been for your old ancestral lines as roots, we’d never 
been the flourishin’ tree we is.’ 

“‘ Well,’ said his earlship, when I’d got through, an’ 
he kind o’ looked as if he didn’t know whether to 
laugh or not, ‘if you represent the feelin’s of your 
class in your country, I reckon they’re not just ready 
for a aristocracy yit.’ 

“An’ with that he give me a little nod, an’ walked 
off into another room. It was pretty plain from this 
that the interview was brought to a close, an’ so I 
come away. The flunk was all ready to show me out, 
an’ he did it so expeditious, though quite polite, that 
I didn’t git no chance to take a good look at the fur- 
niter an’ carpets, which I’d ’a’ liked to have done. 
An’ so I’ve talked to a reel earl, an’ if not in his an- 
cestral pile, at any rate in the gorgeousest house I 
ever see. An’ the brilliantest dream of my youth has 
come true.” 

When she had finished I rose and looked upon her. 

“Pomona,” said I, “we may yet visit many foreign 
countries. We may see kings, queens, dukes, counts, 
sheiks, beys, sultans, khedives, pashas, rajahs, and I 
don’t know what potentates besides, and I wish to say 
just this one thing to you. If you don’t want to get 
yourself and us into some dreadful scrape, and per- 
haps bring our journeys to a sudden close, you must 
put a curb on your longing for communion with 
beings of noble blood.” 

“That’s true, sir,” said Pomona, thoughtfully, “an’ 
261 


RUDDER GRANGERS IN ENGLAND 


I made a pretty close shave of it this time, for when I 
was talkin’ to the earl, I was just on the p’int of tellin’ 
him that I had such a high opinion of his kind o’ 
folks that I once named a big black dog after one of 
’em, but I just remembered in time, an’ slipped on to 
somethin’ else. But I trembled worse than a peanut- 
woman with a hackman goin’ round the corner to 
ketch a train, an’ his hubs jus’ grazin’ the legs of her 
stand. An’ so I promise you, sir, that I’ll put my 
heel on all hankerin’ after potentates.” 

So she made her promise. And knowing Pomona, 
I felt sure that she would keep it— if she could. 


262 


POMONA’S DAUGHTER 

























POMONA’S DAUGHTER 


I N the pretty walk, bordered by bright flowers and 
low, overhanging shrubbery, which lies back of the 
Albert Memorial, in Kensington Gardens, London, 
Jonas sat on a green bench, with his baby on his knee. 
A few nurses were pushing baby-carriages about in 
different parts of the walk, and there were children 
playing not far away. It was drawing toward the 
close of the afternoon, and Jonas was thinking it was 
nearly time to go home, when Pomona came running 
to him from the gorgeous monument, which she had 
been carefully inspecting. 

“Jone,” she cried, “do you know Pve been lookin’ 
at all them great men that’s standin’ round the bot- 
tom of the monnyment, an’ though there’s over a 
hundred of ’em, I’m sure, I can’t find a American 
among ’em ! There’s poets, an’ artists, an’ leadin’ 
men, scraped up from all parts, an’ not one of our illus- 
trious dead. What d’ye think of that? ” 

“I can’t believe it,” said Jonas. “If we go home 
with a tale like that we’ll hear the recruiting- drum 
from Newark to Texas, and, ten to one, I’ll be 
drafted.” 

“You needn’t be makin’ fun,” said Pomona. “You 
265 


POMONA’S DAUGHTER 


come an’ see for yourself. P’r’aps you kin find jus’ 
one American, an’ then I’ll go home satisfied.” 

“All right,” said Jonas. 

And putting the child on the bench, he told her 
he’d be back in a minute, and hurried after Pomona, 
to give a hasty look for the desired American. 

Corinne, the offspring of Jonas and Pomona, had 
some peculiarities. One of these was that she was ac- 
customed to stay where she was put. Ever since she 
had been old enough to be carried about, she had 
been carried about by one parent or the other. And 
as it was frequently necessary to set her down, she 
had learned to sit and wait until she was taken up 
again. She was now nearly two years old, very strong 
and active, and of an intellect which had already 
begun to tower. She could walk very well, but Jonas 
took such delight in carrying her that he seldom ap- 
peared to recognize her ability to use her legs. She 
could also talk, but how much her parents did not 
know. She was a taciturn child, and preferred to 
keep her thoughts to herself, and although she some- 
times astonished us all by imitating remarks she had 
heard, she frequently declined to repeat the simplest 
words that had been taught her. 

Corinne remained on the bench about a minute after 
her father had left her, and then, contrary to her 
usual custom, she determined to leave the place where 
she had been put. Turning over on her stomach, after 
the manner of babies, she lowered her feet to the 
ground. Having obtained a foothold, she turned her- 
self about, and proceeded, with sturdy steps, to a baby- 
carriage near by which had attracted her attention. 
This carriage, which was unattended, contained a baby, 
266 


POMONA’S DAUGHTER 


somewhat smaller and younger than Corinne, who sat 
up and gazed with youthful interest at the visitor 
who stood by the side of her vehicle. Corinne exam- 
ined, with a critical eye, the carriage and its occupant. 
She looked at the soft pillow at the baby’s back, and 
regarded with admiration the afghan, crocheted in gay 
colors, which was spread over its lap, and the spacious 
gig-top which shielded it from the sun. She stooped 
down and looked at the wheels, and stood up and gazed 
at the blue eyes and canary hair of the little occupant. 
Then, in quiet but decided tones, Corinne said : 

“Dit out ! ” 

The other baby looked at her, but made no move- 
ment to obey. After waiting a few moments, an ex- 
pression of stern severity spreading itself the while 
over her countenance, Corinne reached over and put 
her arms around the fair-haired child. Then, with 
all her weight and strength, she threw herself back- 
ward and downward. The other baby, being light, 
was thus drawn bodily out of its carriage, and Corinne 
sat heavily upon the ground, her new acquaintance 
sprawling in her lap. Notwithstanding that she bore 
the brunt of the fall upon the gravel, Corinne uttered 
no cry, but, disengaging herself from her encum- 
brance, she rose to her feet. The other baby imitated 
her, and Corinne, taking her by the hand, led her to 
the bench where she herself had been left. 

“Dit up ! ” said Corinne. 

This, however, the other baby was unable to do. 
But she stood quite still, evidently greatly interested 
in the proceedings. Corinne left her, and walked to 
the little carriage, into which she proceeded to climb. 
After some extraordinary exertions, during which her 
267 


POMONA’S DAUGHTER 


fatlegs were frequently thrust between the spokes 
of the wheels and ruthlessly drawn out again, she 
tumbled in. Arranging herself as comfortably as she 
knew how, she drew the gay afghan over her, leaned 
back upon the soft pillow, gazed up at the shelter- 
ing gig-top, and resigned herself to luxurious bliss. 

At this moment the nurse who had had charge of 
the carriage and its occupant came hurrying around 
a corner of the path. She had been taking leave 
of some of her nurse-maid friends, and had stayed 
longer than she had intended. It was necessary for 
her to take a suitable leave of these ladies, for that 
night she was going on a journey. She had been 
told to take the baby out for an airing, and to bring it 
back early. Now, to her surprise, the afternoon had 
nearly gone, and hurrying to the little carriage, she 
seized the handle at the back and rapidly pushed it 
home, without stopping to look beneath the over- 
hanging gig-top, or at the green bench, with which 
her somewhat worried soul had no concern. If any- 
thing could add to Corinne’s ecstatic delight, it was 
this charming motion. Closing her eyes contentedly, 
she dropped asleep. 

The baby with canary hair looked at the receding 
nurse and carriage with widening eyes and redden- 
ing cheeks. Then, opening her mouth, she uttered 
the cry of the deserted. But the panic-stricken nurse 
did not hear her, and, if she had, what were the cries 
of other children to her ? Her only business was to 
get home quickly with her young charge. 

About five minutes after these events, Jonas and 
Pomona came hurrying along the path. They, too, had 
stayed away much longer than they had intended, and 
268 


POMONA’S DAUGHTER 


had suddenly given up their search for the American 
whom they had hoped to find in high relief upon the 
base of the Albert Memorial. Stepping quickly to 
the child, who still stood sobbing by the bench, Jonas 
exclaimed, “You poor itty— ” 

And then he stopped suddenly. Pomona also stood 
for a second, and then she made a dash at the child, 
and snatched it up. Gazing sharply at its tear- 
smeared countenance, she exclaimed, “What’s this?” 

The baby did not seem able to explain what it was, 
and only answered by a tearful sob. Jonas did not 
say a word, but, with the lithe quickness of a dog 
after a rat, he began to search behind and under 
benches, in the bushes, on the grass, here, there, and 
everywhere. 

About nine o’clock that evening, Pomona came to 
us with tears in her eyes, and the canary-haired baby 
in her arms, and told us that Corinne was lost. They 
had searched everywhere. They had gone to the po- 
lice. Telegrams had been sent to every station. They 
had done everything that could be done, but had 
found no trace of the child. 

“If I hadn’t this,” sobbed Pomona, holding out the 
child, “I believe I’d go wild. It isn’t that she can 
take the place of my dear baby, but by a-keepin’ hold 
of her I believe we’ll git on the track of Corinne.” 

We were both much affected by this news, and Eu- 
phemia joined Pomona in her tears. 

“Jonas is scourin’ the town yit,” said Pomona. 
“He’ll never give up till he drops. But I felt you 
ought to know, an’ I couldn’t keep this little thing 
in the night air no longer. It’s a sweet child, and its 
clothes are lovely. If it’s got a mother, she’s bound to 
269 


POMONA’S DAUGHTER 


want to see it before long. An’ if ever I ketch sight of 
her, she don’t git away from me till I have my child.” 

“ It is a very extraordinary case,” I said. “Children 
are often stolen, but it is seldom we hear of one being 
taken and another left in its place, especially when 
the children are of different ages, and totally unlike.” 

“That’s so,” said Pomona. “At first, I thought that 
Corinne had been changed off for a princess, or some- 
thin’ like that, but nobody couldn’t make anybody 
believe that my big, black-haired baby was this white - 
an’-yaller thing.” 

“Can’t yon find any mark on her clothes,” asked 
Euphemia, “by which you could discover her parent- 
age ? If there are no initials, perhaps you can find a 
coronet or a coat of arms.” 

“No,” said Pomona, “there ain’t nothin’. I’ve 
looked careful. But there’s great comfort to think 
that Corinne’s well stamped.” 

“Stamped ! ” we exclaimed. “What do you mean 
by that? ” 

“Why, you see,” answered Pomona, “when Jone an’ 
I was goin’ to bring our baby over here among so 
many million people, we thought there might be 
danger of its gittin’ lost or mislaid, though we never 
reelly believed any such thing would happen, or we 
wouldn’t have come. An’ so we agreed to mark her, 
for I’ve often read about babies bein’ stole, an’ kept 
two or three years, an’ when found bein’ so changed 
their own mothers didn’t know ’em. Jone said we’d 
better tattoo Corinne, for them marks would always 
be there, but I wouldn’t agree to have the little crea- 
ture’s skin stuck with needles, not even after Jone said 
we might give her chloryform. So we agreed to stamp 
270 


POMONA’S DAUGHTER 


initials on her with Perkins’s Indelible Dab. It is in- 
tended to mark sheep, but it don’t hurt, an’ it don’t 
never come off. We put the letters on the back of 
her heels, where they wouldn’t show, for she’s never 
to go barefoot, an’ where they’d be easy got at if we 
wanted to find ’em. We put ‘R. G.’ on one heel for 
the name of the place, an’ 1 J. P.’ on the other heel for 
Jonas an’ me. If twenty years from now,” said Po- 
mona, her tears welling out afresh, “I should see a 
young woman with eyes like Corinne’s, an’ that I felt 
was her, a- walkin’ up to the bridal altar, with all the 
white flowers, an’ the floatin’ veils, an’ the crowds in 
the church, an’ the music playin’, an’ the minister all 
ready, I’d jus’ jerk that young woman into the vestry- 
room, an’ have off her shoes an’ stockin’s in no time. 
An’ if she had 6 R. G.’ on one heel, an’ ‘ J. P.’ on the 
other, that bridegroom could go home alone.” 

We confidently assured Pomona that with such 
means of identification, and the united action of our- 
selves and the police, the child would surely be found, 
and we accompanied her to her lodgings, which were 
now in a house not far from our own. 

When the nurse reached home with the little car- 
riage it was almost dark, and, snatching up the child, 
she ran to the nursery without meeting anyone. The 
child felt heavy, but she was in such a hurry she 
scarcely noticed that. She put it upon the bed, and 
then, lighting the gas, she unwrapped the afghan, in 
which the little creature was now almost entirely en- 
veloped. When she saw the face, and the black hair, 
from which the cap had fallen off, she was fright- 
ened nearly to death, but, fortunately for herself, she 
271 


POMONA’S DAUGHTER 


did not scream. She was rather a stupid woman, with 
but few ideas, but she could not fail to see that some 
one had taken her charge, and put this child in its 
place. Her first impulse was to run back to the 
gardens, but she felt certain that her baby had been 
carried off, and, besides, she could not, without dis- 
covery, leave the child here or take it with her. 
While she stood in dumb horror, her mistress sent 
for her. The lady was just going out to dinner, and 
told the nurse that, as they were all to start for the 
Continent by the tidal train, which left at ten o’clock 
that night, she must be ready with the baby, well 
wrapped up for the journey. The half-stupefied 
woman had no words nor courage with which to 
declare, at this moment, the true state of the case. 
She said nothing, and went back to the nursery, and 
sat there in dumb consternation, and without sense 
enough to make a plan of any kind. The strange 
child soon awoke and began to cry, and then the 
nurse mechanically fed it, and it went to sleep again. 

When the summons came to prepare for the 
journey, in cowardly haste she wrapped the baby, so 
carefully covering its head that she scarcely gave it a 
chance to breathe. Then she and the lady’s waiting- 
maid were sent in a cab to the Victoria Station. The 
lady was travelling with a party of friends, and the 
nurse and the waiting-maid were placed in the adjoin- 
ing compartment of the railway carriage. On the six 
hours’ Channel passage from Newhaven to Dieppe the 
lady was extremely sick, and reached France in such 
a condition that she had to be almost carried on shore. 
It had been her intention to stop a few days at this 
fashionable watering-place, but she declared that she 
272 


POMONA’S DAUGHTER 


must go straight on to Paris, where she could be 
properly attended to, and, moreover, that she never 
wanted to see the sea again. When she had been 
placed in the train for Paris, she sent for the nurse, 
and feebly asked how the baby was, and if it had been 
seasick. On being told that it was all right, and had 
not shown a sign of illness, she expressed her gratifi- 
cation, and lay back among her rugs. 

The nurse and the waiting-maid travelled together, 
as before, but the latter, wearied by her night’s at- 
tendance upon her mistress, slept all the way from 
Dieppe to Paris. When they reached that city, they 
went into the waiting-room until a carriage could be 
procured for them, and there the nurse, placing the 
baby on a seat, asked her companion to take care of 
it for a few minutes. She then went out of the sta- 
tion door, and disappeared into Paris. 

In this way the brunt of the terrible disclosure, 
which came very soon, was thrown upon the waiting- 
maid. No one, however, attached any blame to her. 
Of course, the absconding nurse had carried away the 
fair-haired child. The waiting-maid had been sepa- 
rated from her during the passage from the train to 
the station, and it was supposed that in this way an 
exchange of babies had been easily made by her and 
her confederates. When the mother knew of her loss, 
her grief was so violent that for a time her life was in 
danger. All Paris was searched by the police and her 
friends, but no traces could be found of the wicked 
nurse and the fair-haired child. Money, which, of 
course, was considered the object of the inhuman 
crime, was freely offered, but to no avail. No one 
imagined for an instant that the exchange was made 
273 


POMONA’S DAUGHTER 


before the party reached Paris. It seemed plain 
enough that the crime was committed when the 
woman fled. 

Corinne, who had been placed in the charge of a 
servant until it was determined what to do with her, 
was not at all satisfied with the new state of affairs, 
and loudly demanded her papa and mamma, behaving 
for a time in a very turbulent way. In a few days 
the lady recovered her strength, and asked to see this 
child. The initials upon Corinne’s heels had been 
discovered, and, when she was told of these, the lady 
examined them closely. 

“The people who left this child,” she exclaimed, 
“do not intend to lose her ! They know where she is, 
and they will keep a watch upon her, and when they 
get a chance they will take her. I, too, will keep a 
watch upon her, and when they come for her I shall 
see them.” 

Her use of words soon showed Corinne to be of 
English parentage, and it was generally supposed that 
she had been stolen from some travellers, and had 
been used at the station as a means of giving time to 
the nurse to get away with the other child. 

In accord with her resolution, the grief-stricken lady 
put Corinne in the charge of a trusty woman, and, more- 
over, scarcely ever allowed her to be out of her sight. 

It was suggested that advertisement be made for 
the parents of a child marked with “R. Gr.” and 
“J. P.” But to this the lady decidedly objected. 

“If her parents find her,” she said, “they will take 
her away, and I want to keep her till the thieves 
come for her. I have lost my child, and as this one 
is the only clew I shall ever have to her, I intend to 
274 


POMONA’S DAUGHTER 


keep it. When I have found my child, it will be 
time enough to restore this one.” 

Thus selfish is maternal love. 

Pomona bore up better under the loss than did 
Jonas. Neither of them gave up the search for a day. 
But Jonas, haggard and worn, wandered aimlessly 
about the city, visiting every place into which he im- 
agined a child might have wandered, or might have 
been taken, searching even to the crypt in the Guild- 
hall and the Tower of London. Pomona’s mind 
worked quite as actively as her husband’s body. She 
took great care of “ Little Kensington,” as she called 
the strange child from the place where she had been 
found, and therefore could not go about as Jonas did. 
After days and nights of ceaseless supposition, she had 
come to the conclusion that Corinne had been stolen 
by opera singers. 

“I suppose you never knew it,” she said to us, “for 
I took pains not to let it disturb you, but that child 
has notes in her voice about two stories higher than 
any operer prymer donner that I ever heard, an’ I’ve 
heard lots of ’em, for I used to go into the top gallery 
of the operer as often as into the theayter, an’ if any 
operer singer ever heard them high notes of Corinne’s, 
— an’ there was times when she’d let ’em out without 
the least bit of a notice, — it’s them that’s took her.” 

“But, my poor Pomona,” said Euphemia, “you don’t 
suppose that little child could be of any use to an 
opera singer— at least, not for years and years ! ” 

“Oh, yes, ma’am,” replied Pomona, “she was none 
too little. Sopranners is like mocking-birds— they’ve 
got to be took young.” 


275 


POMONA’S DAUGHTER 


No arguments could shake Pomona’s belief in this 
theory. And she daily lamented the fact that there 
was no opera in London at that time, that she might 
go to the performances, and see if there was any one 
on the stage who looked mean enough to steal a child. 

“If she was there,” said Pomona, “I’d know it. 
She’d feel the scorn of a mother’s eye on her, an’ her 
guilty heart would make her forget her part.” 

Pomona frequently went into Kensington Gardens, 
and laid traps for opera singers who might be sojourn- 
ing in London. She would take Little Kensington 
into the gardens, and, placing her carefully in the 
corner of a bench, would retire to a short distance, 
and pretend to be absorbed in a book, while her sharp 
eyes kept up the watch for a long-haired tenor, or a 
beautifully dressed soprano, who should suddenly rush 
out from the bushes and seize the child. 

“I wouldn’t make no fuss if they was to come out,” 
she said. “Little Kensington would go under my 
arm, not theirn, an’ I’d walk calmly with ’em to their 
home. Then I’d say: ‘Give me my child, an’ take 
yourn, which, though she probably hasn’t got no 
voice, is a lot too good for you, an’ may the house 
hurl stools at you the next time you appear, is the 
limit of a mother’s curse.’ ” 

But, alas for Pomona ! no opera singers showed 
themselves. 

These days of our stay in London were not pleasant. 
We went about little, and enjoyed nothing. At last 
Pomona came to us, her face pale but determined. 

“It’s no use,” she said, “for us to keep you here no 
longer, when I know you’ve got through with the 
place, an’ want to go on, an’ we’ll go, too, for I don’t 
276 


POMONA’S DAUGHTER 


believe my child’s in London. She’s been took away, 
an’ we might as well look for her in one place as an- 
other. The perlice tells us that if she’s found here 
they’ll know it fust, an’ they’ll telegraph to us, wher- 
ever we is. An’ if it wasn’t for nothin’ else, it would 
be a mercy to git Jone out of this place. He goes 
about like a cat after her drowned kittens. It’s 
a-bringin’ out them chills of hisn, an’ the next thing 
it’ll kill him. I can’t make him believe in the findin’ 
of Corinne as firm as I do, but I know as long as 
Perkins’s Indelible Dab holds out (an’ there’s no 
rubbin’ nor washin’ it off) I’ll git my child.” 

I admitted, but not with Pomona’s hopefulness, 
that the child might be found as easily in Paris as 
here. 

“And we’ve seen everything about London,” said 
Euphemia, “except Windsor Castle. I did want, and 
still want, to see just how the Queen keeps house, and 
perhaps get some ideas which might be useful. But 
her Majesty is away now, and although they say 
that’s the time to go there, it is not the time for me. 
You’ll not find me going about inspecting domestic 
arrangements when the lady of the house is away.” 

So we packed up and went to Paris, taking Little 
Kensington along. Notwithstanding our great sym- 
pathy with Corinne’s parents, Euphemia and I could 
not help becoming somewhat resigned to the afflic- 
tion which had befallen them, and we found our- 
selves obliged to enjoy the trip very much. Eu- 
phemia became greatly excited and exhilarated as 
we entered Paris. For weeks I knew she had been 
pining for this city. As she stepped from the train 
she seemed to breathe a new air, and her eyes sparkled 
277 


POMONA’S DAUGHTER 


as she knew by the prattle and cries about her that 
she was really in France. 

We were obliged to wait some time in the station 
before we could claim our baggage, and while we 
were standing there Euphemia drew my attention to 
a placard on the wall. “Look at that ! ” she ex- 
claimed. “Even here, on our very entrance to the 
city, we see signs of that politeness which is the very 
heart of the nation. I can’t read the whole of that 
notice from here, but those words in large letters show 
that it refers to the observance of the ancient eti- 
quettes. Think of it! Here in a railroad station 
people are expected to behave to each other with the 
old-time dignity and gallantry of our forefathers. I 
tell you it thrills my very soul to think I am among 
such a people, and I am glad they can’t understand 
what I say, so that I may speak right out.” 

I never had the heart to throw cold water on Eu- 
phemia’s noble emotions, and so I did not tell her that 
the notice merely requested travellers to remove from 
their trunks the anciennes etiquettes , or old railway 
labels. 

We were not rich tourists, and we all took lodgings 
in a small hotel to which we had been recommended. 
It was in the Latin Quarter, near the river, and op- 
posite the vast palace of the Louvre, into whose laby- 
rinth of picture-galleries Euphemia and I were eager 
to plunge. 

But first we all went to the office of the American 
consul, and consulted him in regard to the proper 
measures to be taken for searching for the little Co- 
rinne in Paris. After that, for some days, Jonas and 
Pomona spent all their time, and Euphemia and I 
278 


POMONA’S DAUGHTER 


part of ours, in looking for the child. Euphemia’s 
Parisian exhilaration continued to increase, but there 
were some things that disappointed her. 

“I thought / 7 said she, “that people in France took 
their morning coffee in bed, but they do not bring it 
up to us . 77 

“But, my dear , 77 said I, “I am sure you said before 
we came here that you considered taking coffee in bed 
as an abominable habit, and that nothing could ever 
make you like it . 77 

“I know , 77 said she, “that I have always thought it 
a lazy custom, and not a bit nice, and I think so yet. 
But still, when we are in a strange country, I expect 
to live as other people do . 77 

It was quite evident that Euphemia had been look- 
ing forward for some time to the novel experience of 
taking her coffee in bed. But the gray-haired old 
gentleman who acted as our chambermaid never 
hinted that he supposed we wanted anything of the 
kind. 

Nothing, however, excited Euphemia 7 s indignation 
so much as the practice of giving a pourboire to cabmen 
and others. “It is simply feeding the flames of in- 
temperance , 77 she said. When she had occasion to 
take a cab by herself, she never conformed to this 
reprehensible custom. When she paid the driver, she 
would add something to the regular fare, but as she 
gave it to him she would say in her most distinct 
French : u Pour manger. Comprenez-vous ? 77 The 
cocker would generally nod his head, and thank her 
very kindly, which he had good reason to do, for she 
never forgot that it took more money to buy food 
than drink. 


279 


POMONA’S DAUGHTER 


In spite of the attractions of the city, our sojourn 
in Paris was not satisfactory. Apart from the family 
trouble which oppressed us, it rained nearly all the 
time. We were told that in order to see Paris at its 
best we should come in the spring. In the month of 
May it was charming. Then everybody would be 
out of doors, and we would see a whole city enjoy- 
ing life. As we wished to enjoy life without waiting 
for the spring, we determined to move southward, and 
visit during the winter those parts of Europe which 
then lay under blue skies and a warm sun. It was 
impossible, at present, for Pomona and Jonas to enjoy 
life anywhere, and they would remain in Paris, and 
then, if they did not find their child in a reasonable 
time, they would join us. Neither of them under- 
stood French, but this did not trouble them in the 
slightest. Early in their Paris wanderings they had 
met with a boy who had once lived in New York, and 
they had taken him into pay as an interpreter. He 
charged them a franc and a half a day, and I am sure 
they got their money’s worth. 

Soon after we had made up our minds to move toward 
the south, I came home from a visit to the banker’s, 
and joyfully told Euphemia that I had met Baxter. 
“Baxter f ” said she, inquiringly. “Who is he ? ” 

“I used to go to school with him,” I said, “and to 
think that I should meet him here ! ” 

“I never heard you mention him before,” she re- 
marked. 

“No,” I answered. “It must be fifteen or sixteen 
years since I have seen him, and really it is a great 
pleasure to meet him here. He is a capital fellow. 
He was very glad to see me.” 

280 


POMONA’S DAUGHTER 


“I should think,” said Euphemia, “if you like each 
other so much, that you would have exchanged visits 
in America, or, at least, have corresponded.” 

“Oh, it is a very different thing at home,” I said, 
“but here it is delightful to meet an old school friend 
like Baxter. He is coming to see us this evening.” 

That evening Baxter came. He was delighted to 
meet Euphemia, and inquired with much solicitude 
about our plans and movements. He had never heard 
of my marriage, and, for years, had not known 
whether I was dead or alive. How he took the 
keenest interest in me and mine. We were a little 
sorry to find that this was not Baxter’s first visit to 
Europe. He had been here several times, and, as he 
expressed it, had “knocked about a good deal over 
the Continent.” He was dreadfully familiar with 
everything, and talked about some places we were 
longing to see in a way that considerably dampened 
our enthusiasm. In fact, there was about him an air 
of superiority which, though tempered by much 
kindliness, was not altogether agreeable. He highly 
approved our idea of leaving Paris. “The city is 
nothing now,” he said. “You ought to see it in May.” 
We said we had heard that, and then spoke of Italy. 
“You mustn’t go there in the winter,” he said. “You 
don’t see the country at its best. May is the time for 
Italy. Then it is neither too hot nor too cold, and you 
will find out what an Italian sky is.” We said that 
we hoped to be in England in the spring, and he 
agreed that we were right there. “England is never 
so lovely as in May.” 

“Well,” exclaimed Euphemia, “it seems to me, 
from all I hear, that we ought to take about twelve 
281 


POMONA’S DAUGHTER 


years to see Europe. We should leave the United 
States every April, spend May in some one place, and 
go back in June. And this we ought to do each year 
until we have seen all the places in May. This might 
do very well for any one who had plenty of money, 
and who liked the ocean, but I don’t think we could 
stand it. As for me,” she continued, “I would like to 
spend these months, so cold and disagreeable here, in 
the sunny lands of southern France. I want to see 
the vineyards and the olive groves, and the dark-eyed 
maidens singing in the fields. I long for the soft skies 
of Provence, and to hear the musical dialect in which 
Frederic Mistral wrote his i Mireio.’ ” 

“That sounds very well,” said Baxter, “but in all 
those southern countries you must be prepared in 
winter for the rigors of the climate. The sun is pretty 
warm sometimes at this season, but as soon as you get 
out of it you will freeze to death if you are not careful. 
The only way to keep warm is to be in the sun, out 
of the wind, and that won’t work on rainy days, and 
winter is the rainy season, you know. In the houses it 
is as cold as ice, and the fires don’t amount to any- 
thing. You might as well light a bundle of wooden 
toothpicks and put it in the fireplace. If you could 
sleep all the time you might be comfortable, for they 
give you a feather-bed to cover yourself with. Out- 
side you may do well enough if you keep up a steady 
walking, but indoors you will have hard work to keep 
warm. You must wear chest-protectors. They sell 
them down there— great big ones, made of rabbit- 
skins. And a nice thing for a man to have to wear in 
the house is a pair of cloth bags lined with fur. They 
would keep his feet and legs warm when he isn’t walk- 
282 


POMONA’S DAUGHTER 


ing. It is well, too, to have a pair of smaller fur bags 
for your hands when you are in the house. You can 
have a little hole in the end of one of them, through 
which you can stick a penholder, and then you can 
write letters. An india-rubber bag filled with hot 
water, to lower down your back, is a great comfort. 
You haven’t any idea how cold your spine gets in 
those warm countries. And, if I were you, I’d avoid 
a place where you see them carting coal-stoves around. 
Those are the worst spots. And you need not expect 
to get one of the stoves— not while they can sell you 
wood at two sticks for a franc. You had better go to 
some place where they are not accustomed to having 
tourists. In the regular resorts they are afraid to 
make any show of keeping warm, for fear people will 
think they are in the habit of having cold weather. 
In Italy you’ve got to be precious careful, or you’ll 
be taken sick. And another thing. I suppose you 
brought a great deal of baggage with you. You, 
for instance,” said our friend, turning to me, “ packed 
up, I suppose, a heavy overcoat for cold weather, and 
a lighter one, and a good winter suit, and a good sum- 
mer one, besides another for spring and fall, and an 
old suit to lie about in in the orange groves, and a 
dress suit, besides such convenient articles as old boots 
for tramping in, pocket-lanterns, and so forth.” 

Strange to say, I had all these, besides many other 
things of a similar kind, and I could not help admit- 
tingTt. 

“Well,” said Baxter, “you’d better get rid of the 
most of that as soon as you can, for if you travel with 
that sort of heavy weight in the Mediterranean coun- 
tries, you might as well write home and get your 

283 


POMONA’S DAUGHTER 


house mortgaged. All along the lines of travel, in 
the south of Europe, you find the hotels piled up with 
American baggage left there by travellers, who’ll 
never send for it. It reminds one of the rows of ox 
skeletons that used to mark out the roads to Cali- 
fornia. But I guess you’ll be able to stick it out. 
Good-by. Let me hear from you.” 

When Baxter left us, we could not but feel a little 
downhearted, and Euphemia turned to her guide- 
book to see if his remarks were corroborated there. 

“Well, there is one comfort,” she exclaimed at last : 
“this book says that in Naples epidemics are not so 
deadly as they are in some other places, and if the 
traveller observes about a page of directions, which are 
given here, and consults a physician the moment he 
feels himself out of order, it is quite possible to ward 
off attacks of fever. That is encouraging, and I think 
we might as well go on.” 

“Yes,” said I, “and here, in this newspaper, a hotel 
in Venice advertises that its situation enables it to 
avoid the odors of the Grand Canal. And an under- 
taker in Nice advertises that he will forward the 
corpses of tourists to all parts of Europe and America. 
I think there is a chance of our getting back, either 
dead or alive, and so I also say, let us go on.” 

But before we left Paris we determined to go to 
the Grand Opera, which we had not yet visited, and 
Euphemia proposed that we should take Pomona with 
us. The poor girl was looking wretched and woe- 
begone, and needed to have her mind diverted from 
her trouble. Jonas, at the best of times, could not be 
persuaded to any amusement of this sort, but Pomona 
agreed to go. We had no idea of dressing for the 
284 


POMONA’S DAUGHTER 


boxes, and we took good front seats in the upper 
circle, where we could see the whole interior of the 
splendid house. As soon as the performance com- 
menced, the old dramatic fire began to burn in Po- 
mona. Her eyes sparkled as they had not done for many 
a day, and she really looked like her own bright self. 
The opera was “Le Prophete,” and as none of us had 
ever seen anything produced on so magnificent a scale, 
we were greatly interested, especially in the act which 
opens with that wonderful winter scene in the forest, 
with hundreds of people scattered about under the 
great trees, with horses and sleighs and the frozen 
river in the background, where the skaters came glid- 
ing on. The grouping was picturesque and artistic. 
The scale of the scene was immense. There was a 
vast concourse of people on the stage. The dances 
were beautiful, the merry skaters graceful, the music 
inspiring. 

Suddenly above the voices of the chorus, above the 
drums and bass strings of the orchestra, above the 
highest notes of the sopranos, above the great chan- 
delier itself, came two notes, distinct and plain, and 
the words to which they were set were : 

“Mam-ma ! n 

Like a shot Pomona was on her feet. With arms 
outspread, and her whole figure dilating until she 
seemed twice as large as usual, I thought she was 
about to spring over the balcony into the house below. 
I clutched her, and Euphemia and I, both upon our 
feet, followed her gaze, and saw upon the stage a little 
girl in gay array, with upturned face. It was the lost 
Oorinne. 

Without a word, Pomona made a sudden turn, sprang 
285 


POMONA’S DAUGHTER 


up the steps behind her, and out upon the lobby, Eu- 
phemia and I close behind her. Around and down 
the steps we swept, from lobby to lobby, amazing the 
cloak-keepers and attendants, but stopping for noth- 
ing-down the grand staircase like an avalanche, 
almost into the arms of the astonished military sen- 
tinels, who, startled from their soldier-like propriety, 
sprang, muskets in hand, toward us. It was only then 
that I was able to speak to Pomona, and breath- 
lessly ask her where she was going. 

“To the stage-door ! ” she cried, making a motion 
to hurl to the ground the soldier before her. But 
there was no need to go to any stage-door. In a mo- 
ment there rushed along the corridor a lady, dressed 
apparently in all the colors of the rainbow, and bear- 
ing in her arms a child. There was a quick swoop, 
and in another moment Pomona had the child. But, 
clinging to its garments, the lady cried, in excellent 
English, but with some foreign tinge : 

“Where is my child you stole t” 

“Stole your grandmother ! ” briefly ejaculated Po- 
mona. And then, in grand forgetfulness of every- 
thing but her great joy, she folded her arms around 
her child, and standing like a statue of motherly con- 
tent, she seemed, in our eyes, to rise to the regions of 
the caryatides and the ceiling frescos. Not another 
word she spoke, and amid the confusion of questions 
and exclamations, and the wild demands of the lady, 
Euphemia and I contrived to make her understand 
the true state of the case, and that her child was 
probably at our lodgings. Then there were great ex- 
clamations and quick commands, and directly four 
of us were in a carriage whirling to our hotel. All 
286 




X92 


POMONA’S DAUGHTER 


the way, Pomona sat silent, with her child clasped 
tightly, while Euphemia and I kept up an earnest 
but unsatisfactory conversation with the lady, for as 
to this strange affair we could tell each other but lit- 
tle. We learned from the lady, who was an assistant 
soprano at the Grand Opera, how Corinne came to 
her in Paris, and how she had always kept her with 
her, even dressing her up and taking her on the stage 
in that great act where as many men, women, and 
children as possible were brought upon the scene. 
When she heard the cry of Corinne, she knew the 
child had seen its mother, and then, whether the 
opera went on or not, it mattered not to her. 

When the carriage stopped, the three women 
sprang out at once, and how they all got through the 
door I cannot tell. There was such a tremendous 
ring at the gate of the court that the old concierge, 
who opened it by pulling a wire in his little den some- 
where in the rear, must have been dreadfully startled 
in his sleep. We rushed through the court and up 
the stairs, past our apartments, to Pomona’s room. 
And there in the open doorway stood Jonas, his coat 
off, his sandy hair in wild confusion, his face radiant, 
and in his hands Little Kensington in her nightgown. 

“I knew by the row on the stairs you’d brought 
her home,” he exclaimed, as Little Kensington was 
snatched from him and Corinne was put into his arms. 

We left Jonas and Pomona to their wild delight, 
and I accompanied the equally happy lady to the 
opera-house, where I took occasion to reclaim the 
wraps which we had left behind in our sudden flight. 

When the police of Paris were told to give up their 
search for an absconding nurse accompanied by a 
287 


POMONA’S DAUGHTER 

child, and to look for one without such encum- 
brance, they found her. From this woman was ob- 
tained much of the story I have told, and a good deal 
more was drawn out, little by little, from Corinne, 
who took especial pleasure in telling, in brief sentences, 
how she had ousted the lazy baby from the carriage, 
and how she had scratched her own legs in getting in. 

“What I’m proud of,” said Pomona, “is that she 
did it all herself. It wasn’t none of your common 
stealin’s an’ findin’s. An’ it ain’t everywhere you’ll see 
a child that kin git itself lost back of Prince Albert’s 
monnyment, an’ git itself found at the operer in Paris, 
an’ attend to both ends of the case itself. An’, after 
all, them two high notes of hern was more good than 
Perkins’s Indelible Dab.” 


288 






/ 0 > ^ <* 



^ *' • * 5 * ^ ,K S ~*P ri A 0 

% * ,cP flgjffhL* °o ^ „• 

I'^-r ^ U * Jt?n////s 2? * ' 

- ^ ^ 
o 


o 'J^, •$> ♦ 

Z ^ > 2 

° A> ° 

>? ° 


■ y o ? : 



.**'/'’ V‘ 

i \ s * • , *^£% 

« v *£a&» + 
** ' 



s */7V* % <0 V %, 

A> A . ^ * o 

% -v C° /-***-■ * ' 

: ^ o* • 


^ * • * * • ’ /$" 
v % * 

O *> * 

• ^ ■ 

70 <v* ^irv ° ^ 




V # '?.A A <* *'..** A , °r 

_ **b o° NO * ^ ,<r «. • t /v^L 4 -» 



l <V^v 
* ^ *<* 


^:- - ^ «* 
°V • 

j. 0 ^ ** 


+M* 



o • * * A , ^> 

* V 0 0 * ® * ^ 

A 4 

* 6 $ °' 



*°o » 



o £ 

».’• V'*^*‘V 

A . s • * , ,<y * y * °* * 






. V 0 * \.*'*. V /,‘J^% A /,;^ ‘ 

. f vi_ Cj x /*>jy??7-,‘* ^ 47 i r^v\vu\'*?*L * x . ' J ** £r(\l//yPz> ■» 



° ?> 0 ^ . 

..’* A V‘*"’ , 'A 

A <V A* > 

^ :mAo 

\ 


■%'*•••* o* 0 '.. ... %"*’■ v< 

% a V 


A’ Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 

V •> *v ,<9<iN\r r * <V* Neutralizing Agent: Magnesium Oxide 

WPI * VV A Treatment Date: > 

.%"*■ ‘ V, V /..-, -mar a tar - 

% ty .‘-.„/y^ •* O A •■rC: _4fcllS=:0 



% 

*b y °- 


BARKEEPER 


* 


-i®* 




.V /> rl* (412)779-2111 

/ 1 * dA * 0 M 0 ° A* <5> * » * iV ' 

*••, ^r% r\> . » • <> V s s# A'x, 


PRESERVATION TECHNOLOGIES, INC. 
Ill Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Twp., PA 16066 







lP, 




.A 


. &> 




iV ^ 


* X 1 


0 N ° 


*°° % **•*’•’ ^ C o '• ^0° %. 

. ,<y * y • °* V **••'* V 4 <y « * • o^ *b 

^ **’: \/ (£kx y 

^ ^ oy J5&AF * *£V ^ <!? ° 

V a y & '*0,1 * "* A <b A 

o » » ^ %»- •• -I'..^ A* .o^o* <6 ** s ,H« 

<A *Js5^vl^ ^ <-0' A " 

.*T^SI». **. 0 « 


. . . ,& v ^9, ' 

/ ^Mhi; **° 0 
'. '•#>, « 0 •*> A 





v 

"'•P. 

'W 

-™* V* 

^ A ' ^ - <v 'O , » * A 

* ^ *o A?* ^ oWa 

^ A <> A o' 


<V v ' TV** *6' 




*F%P~s* <o> C- 0 ^ *7*^ 

<o v *xv- > v t *L!^L'* <^, «? v ***** > 

V # W :*« ^ #&• V 

**% -SK- /%. °H# -UK* /" 

G v JL^ ~o A^.^VV rO^V i# - # 

*b<* 


\ <> v^v jy &,* 

.ojr a % ^ o* ^ 



'o K 
sP 


s° ^ ^ 
!> 


o> '*&77>° ^0 ’<$> 



A 0 * 


^ ‘•Tr,*’ .# 



* • * .<y » * • 0* ^ ^ ^ * * * 

* ^ jp 4Mik° ^ J 

Vv vv 

1 j ° c5>^ 

* A * v*. 0 O 

* A <. '"^7% * 4 -Cr "o . * * A 

'^o A^ t »"s v <^ 0^ • v » * „ ^b Ay o o w « 

i *_ i vi .A • ^ v* C, ni>jy?7n^ * O vj*®' * 

^ - 0 / .‘i^ar- ■%.,< .* 






. **?^* % C %' t ' t>l40 ° ^°° ^ "'• #1 
' ^!rl^ cv, A o v *«••* > 

:4WA'« \y ?'iM£\ **-' 

/ /\ /• 

>b. '*..* A <* *^vv* .&*■ 

+o^ y ,0^ a 1 " 

* '^ri* w 'V^0t« ^.i 




A u 

^ aO *!,'£• > ■ >. 

\/ +- * 



\ <b 77 « 4 <G P 

« >^mi* •n* ^ tJ£m%>.* 






9 I 1 * 


w€rt n ;% ^ 





I bookbinding g 7 #» a A ♦ 

f| Drantville Pa - ^rKl^ • 

'1 Sept-Oa £*i5 “* 

W*’n QuM'y Bqunei 


f r»o tf <> v % s*VLf* 

*■1^^ * .A A. y^Wh^* *r* 


9 N < 





7-^ • 

, " A^'V •■ 



«• ! \ • • \ • ' 

? r \ 1 ' ^ . 

» ' » ‘ « s « * % 

• ‘ - > * . » ; > >; > .. 
? >* * * 

■ J < > 1 


V 

y . \ ' 

'■ : ■ ? ■} J i 


•• s < ■ -I • . 

• k ' \ : : 

u i '.hivi ••it:.;. . 

, »s ■ 1 . ' : : ■■ ; , : , : 

\* \ \ '• ; ’ • i ’ S ' 1 « ' • J 

k fe ! <i i.i? 

• ' I I 1 . ■ 

• M *1 • • • \ M 1 . 1 ' . 

n . v ' * ; ♦ s 2 i ,* •» ; « ■ 

• • } ; v i i : ' - ’ . : : :■ ; ■ 

■ ' \ : 1 ' ■ . • \ • : i •; : 

• 1 

M . . . • \ ' '♦ ^ - 1 ) .* ; 

' • : : -M ; V : 1 ; ;• i . { • .* *... . : i i ; ■ 

: ■ . •• ;• •. 

: : . ; : . . :■ . . : 

• ■'! ■ ’• * ■’ * : i ; •• i ! 

i ! • s ■ 

1 , , ■ ’ ■ . »»>.'«•• •/. i . • » 

‘ , ! , i ■ • • ■ . ; • , i ' . ' ' j • 

< > f i , . • i i > * . • i. i 

•■'if f • )v >L III I I . • • » • < I . 

1 ’ I ■ f • . 1 , ‘ 

I I • t i| .j ( ^ \ 

■ , * • . ' \ ; • f - V k > • , .1 v * 

) \ . , : • ■ . 

* . , - '1 

■ ■ • ' f i . i .. . . I it 

? j ■ • : ' ; 

■' ' r > > 1 ;• •’ ; i •' •' ■■ J j •• •. / •* - .. 

\\ ■ * i ■ 

i • ■ ■ ■ 

J 1 : • •, t f , '■ \ ■ •' 1 , ! 1. • i ' ' 

\ N 5 v f i.‘ , • * 1 . 

f ' , i? !'« : (/! 

‘ t ■ \ \ J i : ! l • \ 

\ i • *, • i, * i , U i 1 i 


1 . » i *. • ; t i 
i • ■> V •. i I *. i 


. 5 f ■■ - Vi . ; v , • ' 

. • hi • 

. ^ \ \ ' » * ■ . V 1 ) . I ? • 

• ' <1, . 1 ■ ! (\ ‘ I ' f X 

I ^ 1 * ■ • * . 

'? ; ; , 

■ i ■ : >,:■ r 

. « • * * ; t t 

I •' ' • • . ? ’ , ' r f j ) 

• \ ’ 1 \ v . 1 m 1 , • 

:■ /> •, 


' •; ‘ ? 


v, u f 

• > 

l . i 

Y ■*- 1 •( 

! \ ! V 


ii., i 

, - 1 

/' * 


, ' ■ ' , ■ j b j ■ : 

, 1 I • : : ' i ■ 

f I 4\l«»i 

f • f . ; ( i . : t 

i / i i i ' > ; t »■ , * i • 

1 :• • w •«:> / 1 ■ : . •• • , ; . . 

l t i • v / , i / 2 ' * ' • » 

j : h •: . : 


;• ! •{' • - ; .. 

; 

* • . * • • • • ' • . < ' ’i . i ; , i 

’ • , > • . • ■ , r , ' l ! 

i , \ i . • ; f •• f* ( ■ ■ ■ : ! • , 

1 * Vi •••;:■ v / ; j ;>• ’ ;• /• * * 

1 ■-.>»!' • * 1 »- • » 

. * V ' I 


I f 

‘ a : > ' • • i • 1 

; '« ; r •' ; 'I l 

V ■ . .» . , ' ' 

1 X / I * • 

■ . • • . 

• ’ 1 / J . 1 


I ■ I I . I 

■ ' \ > 1 • I 

•. •- ; * •• / ■< : 


• S 1 < ' ' ' r • 

• , ‘ i ' I 1 * ; 


' ’ • 


1 > \ •* 
• i w , ' . J i ? > . ■* ’ 

j 

>4 > ' '• :* ' •* ' ‘ *• 

*\ S : 1 i ' " 

‘ C j ' * l . * 


■ • ' • • ' » 

. / , < > .) 


t - 


, '■ : } ! •• ■, \ 1 > r • 

■ ' j ■ • •• , ' , • * • . ■ ; • • 

> • i ■.> ... ; j , 


• : ; 


LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 


i • i 

, M ‘ 

s 

1 , ; 

. X i 

i ' "• 

1 \ > 

1 | 


0 009 322 395 0 




